


Tears of a Hunter

by iliketocolor



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Self Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 42,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliketocolor/pseuds/iliketocolor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn Hunters dad left him at the Matthew's 3 weeks ago and now he may not be coming back for a long time.<br/>Basically set after during and after 2x23: Home. What if Turner didn't meet Shawn right as he left through the window? What if Shawn had time to run.<br/>It pretty much follows the story line set in season 3, but with a couple changes. Mainly Chett Hunter is abusive and never does come back for Shawn.</p><p>Warning for mentions of child abuse and major self harm.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He didn’t know what to do anymore. He’d survived a lot in his life but this was different, this time he knew he was completely alone. Shawn Hunter felt alone a lot throughout his childhood, but it all added up to this moment. His dad actually left and was probably never coming back for him. His best friend’s parents were finally sick of him and now he didn’t even have a place to live. So he did what he was best at, he ran, alone.

He was well accustomed to the Matthews’ home and Cory’s window was Shawn’s own personal front door. His stuff was already packed. He was always packed. His dad was supposed to come back for him any day, so he just kept his few items in his duffel, always prepared to go home- when his father came back with his home.

Now there was nowhere to go, so he just ran; past Chubbie’s, past the trailer park that he knew so well, and past the high school. Eventually, without realizing where he was headed, he reached the bus station. He’d pick the bus with the cheapest ticket and the furthest distance; anywhere away from Philly. His options: Pittsburg, New York, or the Jersey Shore. That’s all he could afford. New York sounded alright to him, getting lost in the crowds and having so many opportunities to do whatever he wanted. The bus would leave in 45 minutes, still plenty of time to calm down a bit. His nerves were shot, his mind was racing, and he looked like hell. He went into the bathroom to try and clean up, try to look respectable enough to be sold a ticket. Not that anyone working tonight probably cared. The only people here were probably just like him, running from something and having no one to care.

***********************************************

He got into the bathroom and sat on the floor. He probably shouldn’t have. The bathroom wasn’t the cleanest place around. It was a single room with an off-white toilet that looked as old as him. The sink attached to the wall had a slow drip at random intervals and the mirror above the sink was intact but dirty. As he sat with his head against the wall he glanced at the random names and numbers scrawled on the wall. Now that he was alone all he could do was think.

He was sick of people. He had no one who wanted him and the strangers in the station annoyed him just by being there. He figured being alone was better for him anyway. No way to screw up anyone else’s life. He was safe alone. No one could hurt him when he’s alone. He wanted to cry. He never wanted that before. He knew he couldn’t cry. Hunters didn’t need to. They simply took what life threw at them and got by, never giving it a second thought. But for some reason he was never like the rest of his family. He could never just let things roll off him. Things always stuck with him. His mom told him he was useless….when he was seven… and he never forgot. His father hit him for breaking the TV… when he was nine. Then beat him the next morning when he found Shawn crying in his room. He quickly learned Hunters never cry.

But sitting on that bathroom floor, he couldn’t help feeling like that small boy. He could feel the blood boiling in his veins, his skin was crawling, and he could only think about how much he wanted to get out of his own body. He took off his jacket and stood up to look at himself in the mirror, he hated what he saw. He saw the useless kid that no one wanted.

He went through his bag, not sure what he was looking for. He figured he’d find his money and see if he could get some food before buying his ticket. But instead of finding his rolled up cash, he stumbled upon his razor which left him with a small, shallow cut. He’d forgotten to cover it last time he used it and the cut on his finger slowly started to bleed. He stared at the blade. He had no idea why he found it so fascinating. He’d used it so many times to shave and never thought it would have another purpose. But here he was feeling slightly better and wasn’t sure why. He held the razor in his hand, just staring. He found himself breaking it apart. He didn’t know what would come of it, but he just felt he needed to break the razors out of the shaving handle. When he had the razor free from its casing, he brought it to his wrist and his mind just started telling him to break his skin. All he could hear were his parents telling him how useless he was, the Matthew’s saying how much a burden he was, and Turner and Feeny telling him how dumb he was. So he pressed down. He dragged the razor across his wrist. His blood started seeping out and he started feeling better. The voices started fading and he kept going. One cut for each of the lives he’d ruined. Mom, dad, Feeny, Turner, Eric, Amy, Alan, Cory- especially Cory. He’d never been a good friend to Cory, always making him lie to his parents, getting him into trouble, distracting him in class- Cory deserved a better friend.

Finally he was calm. His arm was covered in horizontal cuts and his mind was clear. He figured it was finally time to get going. He soaked up the blood with some toilet paper, a whole roll to be exact. But once the bleeding had stopped he got his coat back on and looked at himself in the mirror again. He’d changed. In those 15 minutes, he’d changed. He looked better, more normal, more like a kid who was just catching a bus; little did anyone else know that inside, he was so far gone.

Shawn walked out of the bathroom and confidently walked to the ticket counter. He bought his ticket to New York and sat down to wait for his new life to start. 20 minutes. He sat, just watching the other people. The drifters, the bums- his kind of people. But one person stood out as soon as he walked in _. Damn, Jonathan Turner, he couldn’t just leave the kid alone_. Shawn unconsciously pulled at his sleeves and started preparing himself for the yelling.

Turner spotted Shawn right away. He was a mess. The kid looked pale and scared. He didn’t know what to say even though he’d thought about it the entire way to the station. He knew where Shawn would be going. Once the Matthew’s discovered that Shawn had locked the door and went out the window, Turner knew there was no other place the kid could possibly go.

“How far ya goin’?” Turner asked while taking the seat next to Shawn’s bag.

“New York... Not like you care.”

Turner sighed. “Look Shawn, I can’t tell you what to do, but I can offer you a place to stay. Running to New York isn’t going to change anything. It’ll make things worse. Here you at least have people that care.”

“Since when? My own PARENTS never wanted me, why do I need to continue to burden everyone else?”

“I get it, and if you want to leave, I won’t stop you. Just come stay with me tonight and get some food. Tomorrow I’ll drive you right back here and get you a ticket anywhere, not just the first place on the board.”

Shawn thought it over. He knew it was a trick. But he was so tired, and hungry. He didn’t have enough money to buy his ticket and food, so what was one more night of being a burden?

“Alright. California might be better anyway.”

*************************************

After eating some pizza and watching random shit on TV, Turner finally went to bed. He gave Shawn a pillow and blanket.  “You better be here in the morning kid.”

Shawn sighed. He knew Turner meant well and he wasn’t planning on leaving before morning. He was so tired, in more ways than one. He was just so tired of running, worrying, staying strong. There was nothing he wanted to do more than lay on the couch and sleep for years.

He rolled up his sleeve and looked at the damage he’d done just a couple hours before. His entire arm was throbbing but he was calm. The cuts were strangely interesting. He ran his finger over the scabs that were finally forming. They weren’t deep; the razor was months old, it’s not like he could afford a new one when the blade went dull. He’d have to shower sometime soon and wash the rest of the dried blood.  He rolled his sleeve back down and lay his head down. He closed his eyes and sleep came easier than it had in weeks.

***********************************

The next morning came too soon for John. He was hoping a good night’s sleep would help Shawn calm down and think about things. He walked out to the living room and was relieved to see that the kid didn’t run off in the middle of the night. It was only 9 a.m. on a Saturday and he wished he could have slept in. But there was no way he was going to get any more sleep until Shawn was figured out. He let Shawn sleep and started grading papers, but couldn’t concentrate. He just kept looking over at the vulnerable kid on his couch. He didn’t know what to do. Part of him wanted Shawn to wake up so that they could fix things, but the other half wanted to not have to figure out what to say to the kid. Eventually he started cooking breakfast. He wasn’t really hungry, but Shawn needed to eat and they also needed to get things sorted out sooner rather than later.

All he had was eggs, cereal, and toast. That would have to do. So he started scrambling eggs and making himself some coffee. Shawn woke up 10 minutes later.

The smell of fresh coffee was a pleasant surprise to Shawn. It was almost 10:30 and it took him a minute to realize where he was.

“Hey, Hunter! Morning, want breakfast?”

“Uh, sure. I mean I guess it would be best before we leave.”

John didn’t know what to say to that yet. He placed a plate of eggs and toast in front of Shawn.

“Turner, could I possibly get some coffee?”

John wasn’t too surprised. He filled a cup with fresh coffee and watched as Shawn slowly picked at his eggs and sucked down the black coffee.

“Alright Shawn, here’s the deal, I want you to stay here.”

“For how long? 3 weeks, till you get sick of me…” Shawn needed to stop talking. He was going to cry. He shut up and pressed his hand to his cut-up arm under the table. The urge to cry faded and he went back to sipping his coffee, pretending that he never said anything.

“You’ll stay here until you want to leave, until your folks come back, until you’re 18, I don’t care! Just stick around and it will be worth it.”

Shawn ate some eggs and thought about this. He could stay here for now. He didn’t need to leave immediately.

“Alright. But you’re not my dad, you can’t tell me what to do. If I want to leave, you can’t stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it Hunter.”


	2. Chapter 2

Shawn stayed the summer. He wasn’t planning on it, but he never really felt that he needed to leave. Turner was pretty cool to live with and Shawn actually didn’t even mind that his own father hadn’t actually called or even seem to care that he had a son. In fact he was actually kind of glad. He was always aware that his dad shouldn’t be hitting him. Normal parents didn’t hit their kids. But they were the Hunters and he wasn’t a normal kid with a normal dad. He was a screw-up who deserved to be hit. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t glad to be away from the beatings. So summer was a good time for him. His arm even cleared up well enough that by the end of the summer he was wearing short sleeves with no questions asked.

He knew it was too good to be true though. He always knew it would end and when his happiness finally started fading, he was surprised it lasted as long as it did. John was going to a wedding and so Shawn was once again being shoved off to someone else. He packed his bag for the weekend and headed over to the Matthews’. It would have been okay, but he had a date and he knew it couldn’t go well with Cory’s family hanging around. But hey, there was an empty apartment just waiting for him. There was of course one problem, and Shawn found out as soon as he opened the door. There was John, on a date, not out of town. It didn’t make any sense until the girls left and Turner explained that he needed privacy.

All of the sudden he felt his skin crawl again. He hadn’t felt it in a while. He took it as a sign. It was time to leave. He knew it would happen eventually, but for the first time he actually didn’t want to leave. But he walked out anyway. As he walked around Philly, there was no point in pretending, Shawn knew of only one way to stay. He walked into the store he was passing. He knew exactly what he needed to buy- a razor- a relief. Just the thought of his blood running down his arm made him relax a little. He bought his happiness and left the store, heading to, who knows where. He just walked, thinking about cutting. Eventually he found himself in front of Turner’s place _. Screw it,_ he thought. He’d just use the bathroom here. Better than a bus station he supposed. It ended up in his favor anyway, Turner wasn’t even there. So he locked himself in the bathroom and took out his shiny new razor. It was so perfect, unlike him. Always screwing things up and ruining people’s lives. He should have left months ago. He didn’t need to think anymore, he knew everything he was about to say to himself. He figured he should just get to the punishment part of his night.

He broke apart the shaving razor just like he did before. It was almost like he’d been doing it for years. When the new razor met his wrist he smiled as the skin tore open with one swift movement. It was so easy. The first cut was deep, he didn’t intend to cause that much damage right off the bat. He wasn’t nearly finished but there was a lot of blood from one cut. But it didn’t matter. He made a couple more, moving up his forearm as he went. Making sure to use less pressure and go a bit slower. He realized how much easier his skin broke with a sharp razor. If he weren’t so stupid he would have thought about that before he started. Of course he can’t cut the same as he did the first time. That first razor barely did any damage compared to tonight. He gave himself another cut just for being so stupid. Finally he felt calm. He felt normal and didn’t want to escape his own body as much as he did earlier. So he just sat there in the bathroom watching the blood trickle down his arm and drip on the floor from his crisscross ladder of cuts. He sat for about 15 minutes until he realized he had to clean up. Wherever John Turner was, he would be back eventually and this was not something Shawn wanted anyone to find out about. He quickly wrapped his forearm tightly and took his towel from the rack and wiped off the floor. Luckily he was still alone in the apartment. He stashed the towel in his old duffel, put on a long sleeve shirt and sat on the couch to wait for Turner to inevitably turn up.

About half an hour later, Turner came home and was relieved to see Shawn sitting on the couch. They had a good talk and agreed to give each other some space when they needed and that Shawn doesn’t need to run every time something happens. Shawn didn’t need Turner to tell him that, he never needed to run again, he had a way to escape without going anywhere.


	3. Chapter 3

He didn’t mean for it to become an everyday event. He was originally surviving by making a couple cuts once a week. It wasn’t until he found himself relating to a pig that he found himself needing to escape more and more often. He discovered if he cut in the morning he could make it through the day and no one would suspect he wasn’t who he used to be. He could laugh and joke and hit on the girls that could make him feel wanted for a moment. The more blood he let out the better he felt. It wouldn’t have been a problem until he was almost caught. It was the night Little Cory was almost taken away. He was careless. His sleeve rode up a bit too much and big Cory was oh so very observant.

“Hey man, where’d you get that?” Cory asked hesitantly.

“Huh, what are you talking about?”

“That scratch, your wrist…”

Shawn tried to keep his cool. “Oh, that! It’s no big deal. Little Cory and I were just messing around and he scratched me.” He shrugged it off and moved his attention back to the pig, “Didn’t you boy? You are just quite the little wrestler aren’t you?”

Cory smiled. He wasn’t sure Shawn was telling the truth, but he didn’t think there was anything else it could possibly be. He was just glad that he wasn’t in the middle of his best friend and his girlfriend anymore.

Turner looked at Shawn and how happy he was to give that pig a home. “Alright boys, I think it’s time to get home. Come on Hunter, Cory.”

“Oh Mr. Turner, I’m gonna stay here.”

“Not you, Matthews, the pig.”

The next time he ran into a bit of trouble was a couple weeks later. He and Cory had just made it back to Turner’s after a close call with Shawn’s brother at the trailer park. He took his coat off and threw it on the couch. Turner walked out of the bedroom just in time to see the two idiots with a broken school camera. They just sat on the couch. What was he going to do with these guys?

“Boys, boys, boys, what’s the damage here?”

Shawn took the camera and handed it to Turner. “Just a rough night man. I think I just need to get some sleep. I’m gonna take a shower and I’ll see you tomorrow Cor.”

Not waiting for a response, Shawn got up and grabbed a towel and some clothes. He started the shower and locked the door. Under the sink he pulled out his pocket knife. He’d switched his razor out for a knife a couple weeks ago. It was easier to handle and made him feel less like a sad teenage girl and more like the worthless trailer park trash that he knew he was. He took off his clothes and sat against the tub. His arm was out of room. He stared at his body and thought about what to do. He looked at his other arm. Clean. His thighs, legs, hips… clean- so many choices. He decided on his other arm. It would work well. The knife was sharp and he smiled at how it perfectly opened his pale white arm. He cut until his head was clear. He knew what triggered him tonight. He had to stand up to his own brother just to save his other one. He didn’t belong in the trailer park. But he still didn’t belong with the Matthews. He was about 10 cuts in when he felt the calm. He looked at his arm and touched the fresh blood. Some cuts were deeper than others and figured they would leave bigger scars if he didn’t get them looked at, but that was out of the question. He dropped the knife in the sink and got in the shower. He watched the water turn pink and then red and ignored the sting as the water entered his wounds. He washed his hair and body quickly, wanting to get the trailer park dirt off of him. He stood there under the water for another 5 minutes until the cuts stopped bleeding. He finally turned off the water and dried off. He wrapped his arm in a bandage he hid underneath his side of the sink and threw on his sweatpants and a long sleeve shirt.

Walking out of the bathroom he tousled his hair in a towel drying it as much as he could. Surprisingly, Cory was still there talking with Turner. They went quiet when Shawn entered the room.

“Hey guys, what’s so interesting.”

“Nothing. Just catching up and talking about what to do about the camera.”

Shawn sighed. He wasn’t stupid. In all his years, he knew when people were talking about him. And for some reason it really bothered him in that moment that his best friend and his trusted guardian talking about him. He dropped the towel next to the couch and faced the two.

“Look, I know you’re talking about me. What did I do now? Do I need to be moved to another home?”

Cory and Turner glanced at each other. Cory could see the panic rising in Shawn. Turner could see the urge to run was building.

“Calm down Shawn. Nothing is going on. We were just talking about the legal guardianship papers. I just got them in the mail yesterday from your dad. What do you think?” Turner grabbed Shawn’s arm, pulling him to sit on the couch.

Shawn panicked. He ripped his arm away and glared. “Don’t touch me. Just let me go to sleep. Do what you want. Everyone else seems to know what’s best for me.”

Turner looked at Shawn, really looked at him. The kid was thin and really pale. He looked so small and scared but he could see the thin mask that Shawn was putting up to hide all that. Shawn had always hated to be touched, but he never reacted that strongly before.

“Shawn, it’s fine. I really want to know what you think on this. I want you to stay and if you want I will sign the papers. I just don’t want to do that if it’s not what you want.”

As Shawn moved and sat on the armchair near the TV, Cory observed him. Cory had seen Shawn get upset before, but not quite like this. His friend was so… terrified. Like there was something bigger going on right in that moment. Then he saw it, a small bit of blood coming through his shirt.

Shawn, you’re bleeding,” was all he could say.

Shawn looked to his arm. This was it. He was going to be found out and now John definitely wouldn’t want him. He’d tear up the papers and finally realize what a fucked-up kid Shawn really was. But he wanted to play it cool for as long as he could get away with it. “Hmmm, oh, it must have just reopened when you grabbed my arm Turner.”

“Right…but how’d it get there?” Turner asked hesitantly.

“I was at Uncle Mike’s garage yesterday helping him fix a bike and I got hurt. It’s not too bad so don’t worry about it.”

Turner didn’t believe him for a moment but didn’t want to make Shawn upset again.

“Ok. Well why don’t we all just get some sleep. Just think about what you want me to do Shawn and let me know, alright?”

Cory got up to leave. He didn’t like what was going on. He knew Shawn couldn’t have gotten hurt at the shop. Shawn had been helping out there since they were seven and he wasn’t careless.

Turner said goodnight and Cory looked at Shawn again. “Night Turner. And you know you can tell me anything Shawn. ”

“Yeah Cor, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shawn was tired. He hated feeling like a guest everywhere he went. He was tired of feeling so empty inside. Of course he wanted Turner to sign the guardianship papers. But he couldn’t make Turner do that. He should be back with his dad, getting the punishments he deserved. But what did he really expect; he already knew no one wanted him. Who would want a stupid, scarred up kid that was just a burden to everyone around him? He’d recently found out his dad was staying only about 50 miles from him. He didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to go back there. The guy never did anything for Shawn except give him a couple good bruises for accessories. But that’s what he knew. That’s what he called home. But when he was back to the trailer park with Cory, he found he didn’t belong there anymore either. Rolling up his sleeves he looked at his arm that had no room left and his new arm that he would eventually make match. He traced over a couple old scars knew he was still out of place in the world.


	4. Chapter 4

Eventually, Turner signed the papers. He was now the legal guardian to Shawn Hunter and the kid seemed to be doing pretty well. There was no blood through Shawn’s sleeves after the incident, so it probably was just an accident. What else could it have been? Shawn wasn’t depressed. He was always hanging out with Cory and Topanga and he had a new girl every week. What no one realized was there was a new girl so often because Shawn didn’t want them to get too close. Shawn was getting good at hiding himself again. He refused to bring anyone into his own screw-ups. It wasn’t until John got in an accident that things started to unravel.

Shawn never thought it would go this way. He’s the one that leaves. He leaves first so that others can’t hurt him. Turner is supposed to be alive and well and telling him what to do, not lying on a hospital bed dying and leaving him. He wanted to cry. He hadn’t wanted to cry in years; but sometimes he thought that he would be okay if only he could cry.

Everyone left Shawn alone in Turner’s hospital room. Shawn didn’t want to be there. He wanted to leave but Cory knew that and told him he had to stay. He had to deal with this. So Shawn sat down in the chair by Turner’s bed. He didn’t know what to say or do. But suddenly he was talking.

“Turner, you can’t do this. You can’t leave me. I have always been the one to leave. Where’s my ticket to California, huh? You owe me. You’re supposed to help me. I…I need you. I’m not okay John. I’m empty inside and I’m sick of it. I’ve been trying for years to fill the hole myself and here you are bailing on me. You said you wouldn’t. You were supposed to be there!”

Shawn looked over at Turner’s broken body and knew it was actually time. It was time for Shawn to leave. He should have left when he was 13. He could have saved everyone so much pain. He looked out the hospital door. Everyone was still outside. He couldn’t face any of them. They wouldn’t let him leave and they wouldn’t understand. He looked around the hospital room and decided it was best to use the window, one last time.  He’d grab his bag from Turner’s and get himself to California.

*******************************************

He thought it fitting that he would die at the stupid Philadelphia bus station. What was he thinking; he could never escape if he didn’t physically leave.  He’d been trying for years to just get through and it was time to just get out of everyone’s way. Sure he could get on a bus to California. He could go anywhere. But someone would always force him back. He would just screw up their lives even more.

He didn’t come here thinking that way. He came in prepared to buy his ticket to California and finally get out like he planned the last time he was here. But he couldn’t think straight. He could feel his blood coursing through his veins. His wrist throbbed with an ache that he couldn’t ignore. He looked at the board of departures and saw he had an hour and a half until his bus left. He looked around and tried to take in the differences from the last time he was here. It was earlier for one. It was 6:30pm and the station was filled with people who weren’t escaping, just going on vacation or going home. The lights were brighter and he hated that the place was so crowded. He quickly made his way to the bathroom and locked the door. He sat in the corner of the bathroom and took off his jacket and long sleeve over-shirt. He was wearing his favorite t-shirt underneath and knew that he would never wear this shirt when he got to California. Something about it right now, made him hate this shirt.

He got his knife out of his bag and was glad that he’d recently sharpened it. He didn’t give it a second thought as he started cutting. He was so used to the pain now. In fact, he was so used to it; the first couple cuts didn’t ease his mind. He looked at his arm. He was sick of it. He was sick of the habit, the pain, the lies, and mainly he was sick of being so tired. He was done. He knew that this was different and California wouldn’t save him. Nothing could save him, because like his parents always said, he was useless. So he broke the habit of cutting horizontal. He just took his knife and slashed until he couldn’t even see his pale white arm through the blood. That was it. He was free. So he just leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes; finally happy with being alone in life.

*************************************************

Cory was so sick of running after Shawn. He loved his best friend, but when would Shawn get it that Cory would always be there for him. He was part of the Matthews’ family and he needed to stop running. Cory knew Shawn ran when the doctor went in and  said he was surprised no one was in the hospital room with Turner. Luckily Shawn was predictable when it came to running. The only way out of town for a runaway was the bus. Cory arrived at the bus station with no sign of Shawn.

“Uh, ‘scuse me sir, have you seen a kid come in here, brown hair, leather jacket, tough looking…”

“yeah, yeah, weird kid. Went to the bathroom about 15 minutes ago. Tell him he’s gotta buy a ticket or go home.”

Cory went over to the bathroom and knocked.

“Occupied” came a quiet voice. Cory couldn’t tell if it was Shawn. The voice was so small and hoarse. He knocked again.

“Shawnie, is that you?”

“Cory? Go home dude. I’ll be gone soon.”

Cory didn’t realize what Shawn actually meant.

“Shawn, open up. If you don’t I will break the door down.” He heard nothing in reply. “Well, I’ll find someone else to break the door down. But either way you are coming out.”

“No man, you don’t need to deal with this,” Shawn said with as much force as he could muster.

Cory looked around the station. Over at the next row of seats was a ticket-taker. He ran over. “Uh, excuse me; my little brother locked himself in the bathroom, could you unlock it for me? Our bus leaves soon.”

The ticket man shrugged and went to unlock the bathroom. “Here ya go. Safe trip.”

Cory opened the door and immediately wished he could just go back to being 11 in his tree house with Shawn. Nothing in his life prepared him for the sight in front of him. Nothing Feeny has ever said has made him strong enough to deal with this.

Normally, the bus station bathroom had old yellow-orange tiles. The wall next to the toilet was covered with phone numbers, insults, and random drawings. But today the yellow-orange tiles were stained dark red with the blood of his best friend. The phone numbers in black sharpie were covered up by a “sorry” smudged in blood.  And today, his best friend sat in the corner of the bathroom bleeding to death.

“Shawn, get up!” Cory ran to his best friend and lifted his head. “What have you done? Come on, we need to go home. You need to talk to me. Why would… Just don’t die. I will do anything. You can’t leave me here without you.”

Cory couldn’t handle this. They were 15! This was not supposed to be happening.  He opened the door slightly and shouted to anyone. “SOMEONE CALL FOR AN AMBULANCE! NOW!”

He went back to Shawn and surveyed the damage. His entire forearm was slashed apart and the other one was covered in old scars and scabbed-over cuts. He was too pale. Cory started crying. “Shawn, just, uh, hold on. I need you. ”

 Shawn wasn’t sure if Cory was actually there or not.“-ory? Wha’ you doin’ here?”

“Just hanging out. You always know where the cool places are. Thought I’d join.”

“No, Cor, no joining, you can’t die too. You.. not useless. You…” Shawn was slipping out of consciousness. “sorry.”

“Just keep talking. Tell me where we going? What tickets did you get us?”

“Uh, Cali..fona…”Shawn closed his eyes. “-urner  promise…”

“Ah, California. We could have fun there. But you know, we gotta go get you checked out first.”

“no. uh. I’ll….be here. No more move…”

Shawn was interrupted this time and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.  The paramedics had arrived and they were right on time. _Yeah… attempted suicide…lot of blood loss…losing consciousness._

“Alright kid, we’re gonna move him. You coming?”

“Yeah, uh, yeah. He’s my brother.”

*************************************************

Shawn woke up to blinding lights. He didn’t remember anything about how he got there. Was he in California? That’s where he was planning to go. He opened his eyes.

“Shawn…Shawn? Thank god.” Cory had waited for hours by Shawn’s bed. Everyone was already at the hospital for Turner and they were switching between rooms. But Cory never moved. He was there as the doctors gave Shawn blood transfusion after blood transfusion. He answered all the questions he could for the police and the doctors, and then he just talked kept talking to Shawn as he slept.

“Cor? What’s going on?”

Cory didn’t know what to say first. “Um. Shawn, how long have you been, uh, hurting yourself?”

Shawn stared at Cory. All he could do was sit and watch Cory pace the small hospital room. Why did Cory have to find out? He wanted to cry. He realized what happened. The station, the razor, the blood…but he wasn’t supposed to be found…especially by Cory.

“I mean, by the look on your arms it’s been a while. How long? The auto shop cut…was that…part of it?” Cory couldn’t stop talking. He didn’t know how to deal with this. What was he supposed to say?

Shawn wanted Cory to shut-up. He felt bad enough for making Cory deal with the bloody mess, but now to see how much pain he put his best friend through, he realized how much of a burden he always knew was. He just wanted Cory to leave already. He could just yell and leave and finally realize that Shawn is a horrible friend and stop making Shawn feel guiltier for taking a friendship he never deserved. “Yeah. Uh. Since the night I moved in with Turner.”

Cory’s racing thoughts stopped. That was years ago. How could he have missed it? Shawn is his best friend and Cory missed all the pain Shawn was going through. He finally realized how alone Shawn really felt.

“Right, well can you just tell me how pathetic I am and leave so we can stop pretending that I deserve your friendship?”

Cory was speechless. “Shaw-… why would I say anything close to that? You’re my best friend. You always have been. I don’t know how to live without you here.” Cory stopped pacing and sat down in the chair next Shawn’s bed. He didn’t know how to get across to Shawn  how much he meant to Cory and his family. “I need you to be here. Why didn’t you talk to me? Why would you hurt yourself like this?”

“I…um…it helped.” Shawn didn’t know how to explain it. Not without crying. And he couldn’t cry.

“It helped? How could it help? I really want to understand this. I do. I don’t want to lose you. What will it take to get you to finally trust that I care and want to help you? Cry, scream, hit me, do whatever you need to, but you have to make it through this, and I am going to be here until we both die, because I won’t live without you Shawn. I love Topanga, but you are my other half. You’re my brother no matter where we started from and no matter where we end up.”

Shawn looked up at Cory. “I’m sorry Cory. I really am. I can’t explain it. I just deserve it. I mean, it’s complicated. I…there isn’t just one reason.”

Cory handed Shawn a tissue and kept listening.

“What’s this for? I’m not gonna cry or anything. I can’t cry. Hunters never cry.”

“Shawn…you already are.”


	5. Chapter 5

Jonathan Turner woke up 2 days after his motorcycle accident unaware that his entire life had changed. He was surprised to find that Shawn wasn't there when he awoke. Feeny was sitting by Turner’s bed reading when John moaned into consciousness.

Feeny looked up quickly. “Jonathan, you’re awake.” He set his book on the side table and pressed the button for a nurse.

“Mmmhm. Uh, what happened, where’s Shawn?” Jon asked, closing his eyes again.

“You were in an accident on your bike a couple days ago. Shawn…he-”

Feeny was interrupted by the entering nurse. The nurse asked him to wait in the waiting room with the others. He was slightly relieved that he could put having to explain Shawn’s situation. For the first time, George Feeny didn’t know what to say. He reached the waiting room and saw everyone sitting there but Cory and Shawn. He sighed and was glad to let everyone know, “Um, everyone… Jon is awake. How’s Shawn?”

Amy, Alan, Eric, and Topanga all looked up at Feeny and smiled. Amy got up and went to Feeny. “He’s alright. As soon as he’s received enough blood, they’re going to move him to the psychiatric unit. I’ll go let Cory and Shawn know that Jon is awake.” Feeny nodded and knew he had to figure out how to tell Turner about Shawn.

Amy walked over to Shawn’s room and stood for a moment collecting herself. Alan was right behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. He nodded, knowing they should both go see Shawn together. Amy knocked on the door as she opened it.

“Boys?”

Cory turned around in his chair. Shawn was asleep again and Cory was just praying that everyone would be okay. He smiled slightly as his parents entered. He hadn't smiled in days but he needed his parents.

“Cory, honey, Mr. Turner is awake now,” Amy said as she placed her hand on Shawn’s hand. She had expected him to be awake, but he didn't stir at all. Alan looked from Shawn to Cory and asked, “How’s Shawn?”

Cory sighed, “He was awake like an hour ago, but he needed more rest. He usually only stays awake for a couple hours at a time, sometimes he just wakes up and cries. I’ve never seen him cry before mom…They say he lost so much blood that he needs 2 more transfusions before they move him. With so much blood loss, he sleeps a lot.”

Alan ran his palm over his face. Shawn was like a son to him and he didn’t understand how no one could have seen what was happening to Shawn. “They said if you hadn’t found him when you did, he would have died. You’re a good friend Cory; we’ll all get through this.”

“Thanks dad. Can you guys just sit with me until he wakes up?”

Alan nodded and they both sat with Cory just watching Shawn sleep.

*****************

Feeny sat in the waiting room until the nurse came out.

“Mr. Turner is asking for Shawn… I think you should go in there George.” The nurse had gotten to know everyone in the past couple days. Her heart was breaking for them and was glad she didn’t have to break the news to Mr. Turner.

George felt the weight on his shoulders. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and slowly got up from the waiting room chair. The walk to Turner’s room seemed to take days. But he reached the room and walked in.

Turner looked up as he heard the door open. “Shawn?”

“No, Jon, it’s just me. I need to speak with you.” Mr. Feeny sat down in the chair next to Jon’s bed and took a deep breath.

“Jon, there’s been a…situation… with Shawn.”

“What’s happened? Shawn’s here isn’t he George?”

“Well, yes, he’s here. He’s actually in his own room here.”

“What!? Just get out with it George.”

George placed his hand on Jon’s shoulder, “Shawn tried to kill himself 2 days ago.”

Turner’s mind went blank. He just found out that he wrecked his bike, had several broken ribs, a broken leg, several burns down his arm, and had just woken up from his concussion. What was going on with Shawn? Why would he do that to himself?

“Can I see him? I need to see him George. He’s going to be alright…right?”

George pressed the call nurse button. He didn’t know how to answer any questions.  The nurse entered as if she expected to be needed there.

“George, Jon, how are we holding up?” she said as she closed the door.

“I need to see Shawn. Let me see Shawn. Can you tell me how he is?” He asked franticly.

“Mr. Turner, you can’t be moved in your current state. As soon as Shawn is awake and able to see you, you can see him. Since you’re the legal guardian, you need to know, Shawn needs two more blood transfusions and then he will be moved to the psychiatric unit. He seems to have been harming himself for around two years now.”

Turner just stared. He had a lot to process. George nodded to the nurse letting her know she could leave. No knowing what to say yet, Jon closed his eyes and George went back to his book.

***********************

Shawn woke up again a couple hours after Turner. Cory was still there at his side and Alan and Amy had joined him. That must mean something happened with Turner. “Mr. and Mrs. Matthews?”

The Matthews looked up at Shawn. Amy smiled, “Mr. Turner is awake now Shawn, he’s going to be okay and he wants to see you.”

Shawn had so many emotions all at once. He started crying and he hated himself for it. He hasn’t been able to control himself in the past couple days. He is so happy that Mr. Turner is awake and alive, but he can’t see Turner. He can’t face what he’s done. It was bad enough having to face Cory and his perfect family, but he can’t deal with disappointing Turner. He didn’t even let Feeny see him yet.

“Shawn…” Alan moved from his chair towards Shawn. “You don’t need to see anyone until you’re ready. We just wanted to make sure that you knew he’s okay.”

Shawn looked at his arms. “I just need to be alone for a while.”

Cory looked at Shawn. “My parents can leave, but I’m not going anywhere Shawn.”

Amy patted Shawn’s hand, “We’ll be in the waiting room boys.”

Amy and Alan held hands and quietly left the room.

As soon as they had left Shawn looked at Cory, “I don’t get it Cor, why won’t you leave me alone?”

Cory ran his hand through his hair. “Because you’re on suicide watch Shawn! If I don’t stay, they send in some random nurse…and I don’t trust any of them to protect you…” Cory sighed and looked at the floor. “I’m scared if I leave you alone….you won’t be here when I come back.”

Shawn grabbed a tissue and blew his nose. “I’m sorry Cory. I just, I don’t want to have to talk about what I’ve done.”

“I haven’t been making you talk to me about anything Shawn. I’ve been sitting here for two days just watching you cry and talking to you about nothing!”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I’m just scared to have to talk about this. They’re gonna make me talk Cor. I don’t want to have people know how much of a fuck up I am.”

“You’re not a fuck up. All of us love you Shawn, no one is going to make you do anything or treat you any differently.”

Shawn relaxed slightly. He thanked Cory and said he would go see Turner after his next blood transfusion that was scheduled in about 5 minutes.

*********************

Shawn hesitated outside of Turner’s door. He had no idea what to say or how Turner would react. He was going to be moved to the psychiatric unit tomorrow and he didn’t even know how Turner was doing. He opened the door and saw Turner look up at him.

“Shawn….Um, it’s uh, good to see you.”

“You too Mr. Turner. How are you?” Shawn hesitated in the doorway until finally taking the chair next to Turner’s bed.

“I’ll be better once I know what’s going on with you. What happened?”

Shawn sighed and fiddled with the edge of his bandage. “I…uh. It was an accident. I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I was going to be taking a bus to California, but it just…happened.”

“How could slitting your wrists just happen Shawn? What’s been going on with you? They tell me you’ve been doing this for years.”

Shawn couldn’t look at him. He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to run. He wanted to cut. He wanted to do anything but be here in this moment. “Yeah, the first time was at the bus station… right before you showed up.”

Jon was stunned. The entire time the kid has been living with him, he’s been hurting himself. How could he miss this for so long? He thought things would be okay. He never saw a sign that Shawn was in so much pain. “I don’t get it. Why would you just not come talk to me…or Cory... or any of the other people that care about you?”

“I just, it helps. It makes me feel something for a change...” Shawn didn’t want to have to explain it.

Jon watched as Shawn stared at the floor, “Shawn, you need to talk to me about this. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Shawn started crying again and he couldn’t stop himself. He was so tired. “I can’t, Jon! I just need it. I need to stop feeling so empty inside. I am useless and all I do is screw up everyone’s lives. I mean, you shouldn’t have to be giving up your life to take care of me! And then you were here. They weren’t sure you’d be okay…and I knew I couldn’t keep taking advantage of everyone. So I just left. Then when it was happening…I knew I couldn’t stop it. And I didn’t really want to. I knew that running wouldn’t save me, nothing can save me… because I’m not worth saving…”

Jon had no idea what to say. “Look, we’re going to get through this and you’re going to be okay because you haven’t screwed up anybody’s life. Everyone in that waiting room cares about you and is going to help you. I want you in my life. That’s why I signed the papers Shawn, that’s why I am your guardian, because to me, and to everyone out there you are worth everything.”

Shawn glanced up at Jon and leaned back in his chair. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me Jon,” he said as he dried his eyes with his hospital gown. But now Shawn desperately wanted to change the subject. “Right, yeah, so um, what about you? Are you getting better?”

“Don’t worry about it Shawn. It’s going to take a while, but I’m going to be just fine, just some broken bones. They say now that I’m awake there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Well, I’m really relieved. But I should get back; they’re moving me to the other side of the hospital tomorrow.” Shawn stood up to leave. “I’m sorry.”

Jon watched as the boy walked out. He was so overwhelmed. He looked back and tried to think about how Shawn has really been acting recently. He had been eating less and been much less rebellious. He hadn’t even been on a date in a couple months. Jon wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do next.

********************************************

Shawn went back to his room and sat on his bed. For the first time since he woke up, Cory wasn’t there. He was kind of relieved, but he also wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing. Normally he would be sitting on the bathroom floor cutting into his arms. He wanted so badly to rip off the bandages and reopen his cuts. It was easier for him to deal with his thoughts when he was cutting. He wished Cory hadn’t found him. He wished he could have just died on that bathroom floor and saved everyone all this pain. Now he had to sit around and talk to everyone. He had to now think through everything so that he could answer all their questions and see the look on their faces as they realized what a mess he really was.

“Mr. Hunter,” a nurse he’d never seen before said quietly, “I need to sit with you until someone comes back. Don’t mind me.”

Shawn ignored her. It probably was a good thing suicide watch existed. _If he had it his way he would probably finish the job._ He thought to himself. But he instantly hated himself for thinking it. He couldn’t do that to Cory. He remembered the look on Cory’s face that first time he woke up yesterday. He never wanted to have to see Cory look like that again, let alone be the cause of Cory’s pain. He just sat and read one of the books Cory left next to his bed.

About an hour later, Cory walked in and set his jacket on the chair. He had left while Shawn was with Turner so he could clean himself up and get something to eat. “Hey man, um, they’re gonna move you tomorrow, so everyone wants to say goodbye to you now. They’re gonna let me stay the night again if you want.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess they can come in. But you don’t need to stay man, you’ve got better things to do. I can be on my own tonight. I get my last blood transfusion in an hour, no need for you to be here for that.”

Cory sighed. He really didn’t understand Shawn’s thinking. All he wanted to do was be there for Shawn and make him understand he wanted to help. He decided to ignore the comment and just keep talking, “Right, so I’ll sleep in this chair again. I’ll go get everyone. Should Feeny come too now that you’ve seen Turner?”

“Yeah, just let them in for a bit.” Shawn adjusted the hospital bed so he could sit up.

Amy and Alan walked in with Eric. “Hey, how are you doing?” Eric asked, sitting next to Shawn’s bed.

Shawn looked at the perfect little family. He wished he could have been part of a family like that. “I’m doing alright. They just keep making me talk and giving me blood like I’m a vampire or something. But I’ll see you guys in a couple days.”

Eric tried to smile, knowing Shawn didn’t really want them around, “Right, we’ll see you later and we’ll make sure to get rid of all the garlic before you get back.”

Amy and Alan tried to laugh at the banter Eric and Shawn were trying to have, but they knew it was time to leave. “Shawn, you always have a place with us. Just worry about getting better.”

As soon as the Matthews left, Mr. Feeny replaced them. “Hello Mr. Hunter. It is truly good to see you.”

Shawn looked at his teacher and principal, this was a man who has been in his life since he was a kid, never given up on him, and now he knows just how much Shawn can’t be fixed. Mr. Feeny has always believed in Shawn for some reason, and now there’s no way he could still think anything good about this random student from a trailer park. “Hi Feeny, good to see you too.”

Feeny looked at this young man. He was extremely dismayed to see that the young boy he watched grow up had grown up into this shell of a person. He couldn’t quite figure out when that had happened. “Can I sit down Shawn?”

“Of course Mr. Feeny. Got my life lesson for me?” Shawn gave his best Shawn-like smirk and looked at Feeny. His smirk faded as soon as he saw the sorrow on Feeny’s face.

“Oh my dear Shawn. None of my lessons can possibly make this go away. What I can tell you is that I have watched you grow up and have seen the troubles you’ve gone through. You are stronger and smarter than you give yourself credit for. I know that you are going to grow into a man who can concur anything. You have so many people here that love you so much and would never judge you for what you’re going through.”

Shawn was happy that Mr. Feeny still had so much faith in him when he didn’t even have it in himself. He choked back a sob, “Um, thank you Mr. Feeny.”

George got up and patted Shawn’s shoulder, “Alright, well, I’m sure I’ll see you back in class soon.”

Shawn watched Mr. Feeny leave and he rubbed his eyes. He knew no one was left but Topanga and Cory. And as if right on cue, Topanga entered with Cory right behind. “Shawn! You look good!” She walked over and gave Shawn a hug before sitting down. “How’s the food? You know, I bet it’s not as good as the burgers at Chubbie’s,” she said as she pulled a Chubbie’s bag from her purse. She smiled sweetly and gave the bag to Shawn.

“Thanks Topanga. The food here is pretty dull. It’s good to see you.” Shawn was glad that she didn’t ask him how he was or tell him how loved he was. He hated having to just tell everyone he was fine and give them a smile. He pulled out the burger and took a bite. “So what’s going on with you?”

Topanga saw how much Shawn needed to be normal for a moment. “Well nothing really. School isn’t as fun without you two there as a distraction. But you know, I’m getting by with my A’s.”

Shawn gave his best smile and finished his burger. Cory smiled at his best friend and his girlfriend and was glad they were both there. He knew he was in for a rough night. He had only slept about 5 hours in the past couple days. Every time he tried sleeping he would have nightmares about finding Shawn on the bathroom floor covered in blood. So he’d taken to drinking coffee and just watching Shawn sleep. He’d cry sometimes and pray. Other times he’d just think about all the crazy antics he and Shawn have gotten into over the years. But usually if Shawn was sleeping, Cory would read to him.

“Well, I think I best leave you boys here. I’ll see you soon Shawn.” Topanga gave Shawn a kiss on the cheek and let Cory walk her out. Cory kissed her at the doorway and watched her leave.

“Alright bud, just you and me. What do you wanna do tonight? I can see if that hot nurse intern will bring you some pudding…eh?” Cory smiled as he sat down again.

Shawn looked at his best friend and shrugged, “nah man, pudding is more your thing. But I actually do want to talk to you for a minute if that’s cool.”

Cory adjusted in his seat. He was actually really happy Shawn was voluntarily opening up. “Yeah, definitely. What’s up?”

Shawn ran his fingers over the bandage on his arm. “I know that you have a million questions Cor. I know you and I know it’s been tough for you to not just force me to talk. But I want to thank you for not making me talk about anything. You know I don’t like to talk about my life or my feelings and it’s just that this time, I really don’t know how to explain this to everyone. Everyone wants an answer, an explanation. They all ask the same questions and get the same expressions on their faces.”

Cory leaned forward. “Shawn, I know you too, and I would never want for you to be forced into doing something you don’t want to. But this, Shawnie,” he said, gesturing to Shawn’s arms, “you do need help to stop this. And I know you know it too. I am here for you and so is everyone else. We’re going to make sure you have all the help you need. But none of the people here will force you into anything.”

Shawn breathed deeply, determined not to cry again, “I just don’t know how to tell them all how much I don’t feel like I belong. Their love for me is misplaced and I have always felt so undeserving of all that you and your family has done for me. I mean, when my own parents don’t want me, why should anyone else?”

Cory placed his hand on Shawn’s arm, “Your parents are out there Shawn, if you want, we can get your dad back. He sends you letter sometimes right? We can just track him down and tell him you need him here.”

Shawn pulled his arm away and started scratching his shoulder. The nurses bandaged both his arms just to keep him from picking at the scabs from his older cuts, so he couldn’t scratch his arms like he really wanted. The room seemed to be getting smaller and he could feel his skin crawling. “NO! Don’t do that!” He realized how insane he sounded by screaming. “I mean, uh, no. My dad is off finding my mom. It’s important to him and he shouldn’t come back. You know, it’s alright if he never comes back. I’ll be fine, really. If that’s what it takes, I’ll stop all this-”

Cory was shocked. Shawn looked like a crazy man. He didn’t feel that Shawn was even talking to him anymore. He was just rambling on and on…

“I mean, dad can’t come home. He’d be furious. He’d see I can’t even kill myself properly and he’d…he’d have to do it for me. He could too…like that one time…it was almost. It’s fine, I’m…I’m useless to him. No, no, it’s best he doesn’t come back- but if he does, maybe he’ll see I’ve been punishing myself, so he won’t have to do it. ”

Shawn wasn’t aware of a lot of things in that moment. He didn’t realize he was talking out loud, he didn’t realize Cory was in the room, he didn’t realize Cory had called for a nurse, and he didn’t realize when the nurse sedated him.

The nurse watched as Shawn slowly stopped rambling and seemed to peacefully fall asleep. If it weren’t for drugs, she knew that this boy would not have slept tonight. She turned to Cory and saw how much pain he was in from seeing his friend break like that. She was concerned about what all of this was doing to Cory. She had given him special permission to sleep over the past couple nights because there was no way she was going to get Cory to leave Shawn’s side. But the kid needed to take care of himself. “Cory honey, your dad is in the waiting room. Why don’t you go with him and I’ll stay with Shawn for a while.”

“Why’s my dad here? I thought he left with everyone else.”

“He’s spent every night here as well. He would never leave his sons here alone.” The nurse smiled and nodded her head to the door.

“Oh, well, I’ll be back. Just read to him or something, I think it keeps his bad dreams away.” Cory looked over to Shawn and started crying. He just realized what had happened to his best friend, his Shawnie. And suddenly he was really glad his dad was in the waiting room.

Walking out to the waiting room, he saw his dad in the corner reading _Sports Illustrated_ as he did every night before he went to sleep. Alan looked up as soon as he heard someone enter the room crying. Much to his surprise, it was his own son.

“Cory! What’s happened?” He franticly put down the magazine and pulled his son into the chair next to him.

“Dad… Shawn just…” Cory found it increasingly difficult to talk through his tears. “He just…went crazy. He was talking so, so fast and was so terrified. I think…I think that umm, Chett…”

Alan just wanted Cory to come out with it. “Chett? Well we’re finding Chett. Your mom called him yesterday. Said he needs to be here for his son-”

“NO! ” Cory shouted as he stood up. “Dad, you have to keep Shawn’s dad away. Chett beats him, dad.” And with the words finally out, Cory collapsed back into the chair. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly.

“I… what? I still don’t understand what just happened in there. Did Shawn tell you this? How long has this been happening? Oh, dear. I have to call your mother immediately- are you okay Cory?”

Cory opened his eyes and ignored his continuing tears. “Well, see Shawn was talking to me about stuff and how he felt he never belonged with anyone. Saying how useless he was and didn’t deserve anyone to love him. Then I mentioned we could find his dad and he just went mental. He kept rambling like I wasn’t even there. I had to call the nurse and she gave him some stuff that knocked him out. That’s really all I know. He said something about his dad might not hit him when he comes back if he sees how Shawn’s been doing it to himself…he said Chett almost killed him once…”

Alan put his head in his hands. “Alright, son, sit here. I am going to call your mom and then we need to talk about you.” He got up and walked to the nurses’ station. They really screwed up this time. He had no idea how to fix this one. He dialed the house number and waited for his wife to answer.

“Matthews residence,” Amy chirped on the other line.

Alan was glad to hear his wife’s voice, “Oh God, Amy.”

“Alan? What’s happened? Is Shawn okay? Jon?” She had no idea what could have happened except the worst.

“Amy, did Chett ever call us back?”

“No Alan. Is it Shawn?” Amy sat at the kitchen table. She didn’t know where this was leading.

“He’s fine, it’s just…we screwed up Amy. We can’t let Chett come back here.”

“We don’t know if he will, but he should be-”

“No Amy, that’s just it. Chett has been abusing Shawn.”

Amy was stunned. She didn’t know what to say. The tears that had been building since the phone rang finally started falling. “Oh, Alan,” was all she could say.

“Look, I have to go talk to Cory about all of this. I just… you needed to know. If he calls back, don’t let him know anything.”

With quick “I love you”s and “Good lucks”s, Alan hung up. He thanked the nurse and walked back to Cory in the waiting room. He looked at his youngest son and wanted to cry. He knew he had to be strong for his son though. He would cry later.

“Alright Cor, everything is going to be okay,” Alan said as he sat down. “But we need to talk about you right now.”

Cory sat up in his chair and looked to his father. “Why, I’ll be fine dad.”

“No son, you won’t. Shawn isn’t the only one going through a lot right now. You look terrible and I know when you’ve got a lot on your mind. I mean…you…found him…”

Cory didn’t want his dad to say it. He knew what he walked in on at that bus station and he didn’t really want to talk about it. But he’d started crying when he began to picture his friend almost dead. “Dad, I just… he was so helpless. And I…I don’t sleep anymore. All I see is Shawn, dead. There was so much blood dad, so much…” Cory hugged his legs to his chest. “And now, now to know that all these years Shawn’s dad has been… How could I know, dad? I accepted every excuse he ever gave for a bruise or a cut. What am I supposed to do?”

Alan hugged Cory tightly as his son kept crying and muttering “what do I do?” When Cory became silent he knew he needed to speak. “Listen Cory, there is nothing you could have done. You could not have saved Shawn from his father. But you did save him from himself. All you have to do is be here for him like you always have. Things are going to get tough, but at the same time, they’ll be getting better. We’re going to be here for Shawn because that’s all we can do. You are the best friend that boy could ever have and I am so sorry that you had to see him the way you did, but we’re going to make sure you get any help you need as well. This is something we’re all going to be working through.”

Cory felt another wave of tears coming on as he listened to his dad. Through his tears, he hugged his dad tighter, “Thanks. I should get back to Shawn now.”

Alan pulled his son away from his chest and looked at him. “I’m coming too,” he said as he stood up. He was going to make sure his son didn’t have to sit alone any longer.

When they got back to the room, the nurse was reading _Catcher in the Rye_ to a sound asleep Shawn. As they entered she smiled and set the book down. She silently pulled out an extra blanket and put it on the other chair in the room. “He should sleep through the night,” was all she said before leaving the room.

Alan took her place in the chair by the bed. Cory watched his dad and yawned. “Shawn seems to sleep better when I read to him. I think we’ve read more books for English in the past couple days than we have our whole lives.” Cory moved the second chair over to bedside before sitting down and wrapping himself in the blanket.

“Cory, get some rest. I’ll read to Shawn tonight… I’ll read to both of you.”

For the first night since he found Shawn half dead, Cory slept peacefully.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day was not what anyone would have expected. Shawn woke up surprised at several things. Mainly the fact that Mr. Matthews was in chair next to his bed with his English book, Cory was actually sleeping, and also at the fact he was waking up at all. He didn’t remember falling asleep to begin with.

Alan noticed Shawn wake up and he gave a sad smile. Shawn could tell something was different, Shawn felt exposed. ”Morning Mr. Mathews. Why do you look like someone died?”

“Hey Shawn,” Alan said softly, trying not to wake Cory. “I need you to know that I know about what your father has done. You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to, but it doesn’t need to be a secret. We’re going to protect you.”

Shawn’s eyes darted around. Mainly from his lap to the floor to the doorway- anywhere that wasn’t at his best friend or Mr. Matthews. “I… what are you talking about. My dad isn’t around.”

“Shawn, you had some kind of panic attack last night and said your father used to hurt you.” Alan didn’t want to push the kid into another break but he needed to get the point across.

“Oh, um, that,” Shawn was tired again. He wished he could fall back asleep. All his secrets were being exposed within the past couple days and he didn’t know how to stop it. He supposed there was nothing he could do anymore. “Yeah. Uh, on and off since I was seven I guess. I don’t really want to talk about it. They’ll make me talk about it in the loony bin later today probably.”

“Of course, Shawn. I just want you to know that _I_ am always going to be here for you. You are a part of the Matthews family and I care about you so much.”

“Thanks Mr. Matthews. It means a lot. But you should both probably be going. They’re going to want to feed me and have me move.”

Alan nodded and softly woke up Cory, glad that both boys slept through the night. As Cory woke up, Shawn smiled and thanked them both for staying with him. “I’ll see you guys as soon as they let me out.” With that, he called for the nurse and prepared not to see the Matthews for the next week.

************

The unexpected part of the day came when there was a knock on the Matthews front door at about 2pm. Eric answered the door and was quite surprised to see Chett Hunter standing on the other side. He let him into the living room and called down his own father.

Alan walked down the stairs and stopped dead in his tracks. “Eric, get upstairs now. Make sure Cory and Morgan are in their rooms and you stay there until I come talk to you.”

Eric stared at his father. Normally he would have made some smart remark about being told what to do, but even Eric could understand that Chett was Shawn’s dad and would need to be told the bad news. However, he didn’t know what bad news Chett would actually be getting.

As soon as Eric was upstairs, Alan moved over towards Chett.

“So, I heard something happened to my boy and I needed to be here. So here I am. What’s he done now?” Chett sat down on the couch and looked at Alan.

“Chett. Let me make this very clear. You are never to see Shawn again. That boy is no longer your son and if you leave here now and never contact Shawn again, I won’t kill you.”

“Alan, I just want to know what happened to my own son. I don’t think you should be telling a man not to see his own boy.”

“We made a mistake calling you back here. I know now what you’ve done to Shawn over the years and I swear I will protect that boy from you if it’s the last thing I do. So I give you a choice right now: leave here and never see him again, or test me on this and end up in prison with a court order to never see your son again.” Alan stared intently at the man on his couch, waiting for a reaction.

Chet ran his hand through his hair. “Right, well. Look at the time. I should be hitting the road. You know, I don’t even know why I’m here. That teacher signed the papers didn’t he? Just tell Shawn I tried to love him.”

“I won’t Chett. I won’t tell him that bullshit. We’re going to take care of Shawn and show him that he has people that don’t need to _try_ to love him.”

“Can I at least know what happened that ya’ll called me here in the first place?” Chet asked as he got up to leave.

Alan sighed, “Shawn tried to kill himself.”

Chett opened the door and stared out at his trailer. ”Can’t even do that right, can he?”

Alan turned and felt his heart break for Shawn, for the fourth time in 3 days.  The next thing he knew he was punching Chett in the face.

Amy ran over to him and snapped him out of his daze and the couple watched as a bloody Chett walked out to his trailer and drove off.

******************

Shawn’s week without the Matthews was hell. That is really all Shawn could say to describe it. He felt his skin burn and crawl and itch for him to cut it open. He spent almost every waking moment talking to some doctor or group or therapist about his past, his present, and his future. He was always talking and explaining and crying. Luckily for him, he was able to control his crying. He really only cried himself to sleep at night. When he was with other people, he could keep it hidden. The only time he cried with someone else was his second to last day. His new therapist finally got him to talk about the beatings. He described the most vivid time in great detail.

_Mostly, he remembers the yelling, from his mother until his dad hit her to shut her up- she never yelled at Chett again, only at Shawn. Then he remembers the yelling from his father. Shawn just stared and started backing away from his father as he yelled. The more steps Shawn took away from his father in that tiny trailer, the more steps Chett took towards Shawn’s little body. Shawn was finally backed into a corner. He slid his tiny body down the wall until he was sitting with his legs to his chest. His father was towering over him, red in the face from shouting. As Shawn started crying, he received the first blow. Chett bent down and slammed Shawn’s head against the wall. “You broke my TV?! I can break your head!” Chett pushed Shawn over and he curled up into the fetal position. He quickly wished he hadn’t as Chett kicked him several times in the ribs. “What are you any good for? And now you’re crying! Psh, no son of mine is going to cry on the floor of my trailer!” He picked Shawn up by his shirt collar and dragged him into his bedroom. Chett threw him against the side of the bed and locked Shawn in the room alone. Luckily, he left for the night to go find another TV somewhere in the trailer park. Shawn heard the front door slam and he kept crying. As he lifted his shirt he winced in pain. His ribs were beginning to bruise and he had a cut on his stomach from where his belt buckle cut his skin after an exceptionally painful kick. He cried himself to sleep that night, and in the morning when he woke up crying in pain, his father beat him again saying “Hunters never cry, do I have to beat it into you?”_

Shawn’s therapist saw that with Shawn’s ability to open up and talk about it, he would be alright to go home. He was scheduled for outpatient treatment twice a week and was told to use the coping skills he learned in group sessions to replace the cutting. Shawn was just glad to be getting out.


	7. Chapter 7

Turner had gotten out of the hospital Friday, 3 days after Shawn was moved. Alan went over and drove Turner back to his apartment. They needed to figure out what needed to be done for Shawn and Alan needed to explain the new situation as best as he could. The car ride was fairly silent as neither man was able to come up with the right thing to say about how their lives had changed.

Finally, they reached the apartment and Alan helped Jon out of the car. When they made it into the apartment and sat on the couch, Alan figured he should start.

“Jon, Shawn is in a worse place than we thought. His father, well…Shawn said Chett’s been hitting him since he was about seven.”

Jon’s mind made several connections with this new information. It explained a lot of Shawn’s random habits and irrational fears. It made sense that Shawn hated authority so much but feared it at the same time. “I’m not surprised,” was all he managed to say.

After a moment, he found himself just talking about everything at once. “I really should have seen this in Shawn. The pain he was feeling inside…the pain he was inflicting on himself. He was just so good at pretending… I mean, I was suspicious once about it…but I didn’t know someone, especially Shawn, would do that to themselves. How do we help him? How do we make him better? Does he not want to live here? I mean, we can figure out a new arrangement-”

Alan cut him off, “I actually think he needs you a lot right now Jon. He is a son to me, but he wasn’t happy living with us. We know he can’t follow our rules and we know he feels suffocated. I think living here with you kept him alive as long as it did.”

Jon sighed, “You know, I think you’re right. He told me the first time he… hurt… himself was the night I came to ask him to move in. He had just done it in the bathroom of the bus station. He was going to go to New York- bought the ticket and everything. But I got him to stay. I didn’t think that he already felt that empty and alone inside.”

“That’s where Cory found him too,” Alan confessed.

Jon looked at Alan and silently started crying. He pictured Shawn surrounded in his own blood at the bus station. He felt horrible for thinking it, but he was glad that he wasn’t the one to find Shawn. He can’t imagine how terrible it must have been for Cory. “I think it’s best someone finally tell me the entire story.”

Alan leaned back into the couch and folded his arms over his chest. “You were in the hospital and they finally let us see you. We gave Shawn time alone to sit with you. But when the doctor went in, he said no one was in there with you. The window was wide open and Cory knew Shawn was running away again.

I was so dumb, I should have insisted I go with Cory, but Cory said he knew he could talk to Shawn and get him to come back. But um…the next thing we knew, the both of them had arrived in an ambulance. Cory was in shock. Nurses helped him from the ambulance to the waiting room He just sat there, staring at the door to the ER. He didn’t say a word... He was covered in blood. Finally the nurses took him and cleaned him up. We had Eric get some clean clothes from the house. But he didn’t say a word to anyone until they let him see Shawn again. Amy and I explained the situation about guardianship and who all of us were, and they let us know what was going on. Apparently he lost around 4 pints of blood. If he had lost anymore, he would have died. Then they asked us if we knew about his self-injuries and none of us knew about it. We all just went speechless. They told us that by the looks of some of the scarring it has been a year or more since he started but they wouldn’t know anything until he woke up.”

 

Alan took a deep breath. He hadn’t had to recap the entire night like that. It was difficult to think back to seeing one son catatonic and knowing another one could be dying. He looked to Jon to see if he should continue. With a solemn nod from Jon, Alan spoke.

“When Shawn woke up he talked a bit to Cory, but didn’t really explain a lot. Therapists and doctors were in and out and Cory never left his side unless he was forced out. He’s been cutting himself since that night when he moved in with you and it’s all over both his arms. They covered them up in the hospital, but I was there with Cory the last night and the nurse changed the bandages in the middle of the night as I was reading to him. What that boy did to himself is brutal. Has anyone at the hospital talked about how to help Shawn?”

Jon adjusted the position of his leg and nodded, “They did a bit. One of the psychologists came in and talked about what this self-harm thing is and how they treat it. They said it’s like an addiction. But, I mean…really? How is that an addiction? It’s not like he’s doing drugs… but um…sorry… they said that it will take time and that everyone is different. I have to talk with Shawn and figure out how he wants to be helped.”

Jon gave a single laugh, “Listen to me, I sound like an informational pamphlet.”

“Well, you’re not healing Shawn on your own, Jon. You call me anytime you or Shawn needs anything. His father is never coming back, I made sure of that, so we just need to do right by Shawn and he should be okay.”


	8. Chapter 8

Shawn was released the following Tuesday. He had spent his week with hospital staff making sure he wasn’t going to kill himself and they found that since he had started opening up, and he had a good support system in place, he could return home. He wasn’t really sure how things were going to be when he got back, and that made him nervous. As he waited for Turner to finish filling out the paperwork so they could leave, Shawn’s mind started wandering. There was so much he was completely unsure about. _What were the kids at school saying? Had Turner gone through the apartment and taken away everything sharp? Would everyone treat him like he could break at any minute?_ He didn’t like these questions; they made him need to see his own blood. He wanted to run out of the waiting room and jump into traffic rather than deal with the outside world. He knew he couldn’t though. All week, they spent so much time giving him new things to do instead of cut. He found that he had taken a liking to writing everything down. If he wrote his thoughts down, he wasn’t actually sharing them, but they were getting out of his head. He could physically organize them and then put them away. But sitting in the waiting room he found himself counting the tiles on the floor. It wasn’t a good distraction, but it worked for the short couple minutes until Turner finished the paperwork and Allan could drive them both back to Turner’s apartment.

No one said anything until they got back into the apartment. Shawn put down his small bag of things he was allowed to have with him in the hospital, and looked around the living room. Nothing had changed. He was actually rather grateful for that. Turner made his way over to the couch and sat down. His leg was killing him and he just needed to get off of it for a bit. Allan closed the door and decided to be the first to say something.

“So, is anyone hungry?” Admittedly, it wasn’t a great opener for the situation at hand, but it was nearing lunchtime and Shawn was looking incredibly thin. The kid used to have such an appetite growing up, always eating anything put in front of him, and then some. But as he thought about it he realized Shawn had changed recently in that aspect too. Almost as if he didn’t have the energy to eat. Well, that needed to be fixed. “Tell ya what, I’ll order pizza.”

Shawn shrugged, “Sounds great Mr. Matthews.” He sat on the other end of the couch from Jon and stared at the blank TV screen. He didn’t want to watch anything, but that’s just where he thought his eyes should be.

Allan ordered a pizza and went to grab some sodas from the fridge. Grabbing three colas, he went back and sat on the chair next to the sofa. As he handed the other two their sodas he thought about what to do. Should they talk about everything now or wait for the food? He figured the only way to figure anything out was to ask Shawn.

“Shawn, what would you like to do right now? We all know we have a lot to talk about, but what do you need?”

Shawn blinked a couple times and thought carefully. “You know, I kind of just want to get this over with. So can you guys just ask me all your questions and tell me what the plan is here so that we don’t have to sit around like this anymore?” Shawn didn’t mean for it to sound harsh, but as he listened to himself he wondered why anyone would even bother with him, he’s such an unappreciative, selfish kid who shouldn’t even be there.

Jon sighed, “Shawn, we haven’t made any plan, we need your input because it’s your life and we don’t know how to help you unless you tell us. You are living here with me unless you would rather be somewhere else. The Matthews’ is always a home to you, but I would like you to stay. If you could talk about it, I would like to know what you used to hurt yourself with so we could discuss how much I can trust you with sharp objects. We need to make a plan for when you feel you need to hurt yourself so that it doesn’t happen…”

Shawn knew that Turner was right. He was told countless times over the week from his therapists that no one can help unless he tells them. He decided if he wanted all this to be over, he just needed to say everything and get it out of the way.

“Look,” Shawn cut Turner off, “I want to stay here. I… I don’t know how to start telling you about everything. You won’t really want to hear it.” He knew Turner would force the issue, but really, Shawn just didn’t want to see the look on their faces when he tells them what his cutting sessions used to entail.

Allan interjected, hoping to give Shawn a starting point. “Why don’t I first tell you what we know. Then you could fill us in on when, where, why, and so forth? Alright?”

Shawn nodded and Allan kept talking. “We know you’ve been cutting since the night you moved in here. We know your dad used to abuse you and we know he is _never_ coming back. We know you feel like you deserve to be in so much pain and you don’t think any of us should care about you, but we also know that you are very wrong about that.”

He looked over at Jon, making sure he said everything needed. When both men looked to Shawn, there was almost no stopping the boys outpouring words.

“I didn’t do it that first summer here. Everything was really good. But then I don’t know, things were different and things kept changing. I started again the weekend I was supposed to be at the Matthews’ because you were supposed to be out of town. I bought razors from different stores in town whenever old ones went dull. Then eventually, I switched those out for a pocket knife; kept it under the sink with my shower stuff. I was doing it about once a week and then after the time I went back to the trailer park with Cory, I started doing it every day…usually in the morning in the bathroom. I ran out of room on one arm, so I went to the other. Nowhere else really seemed to give the same relief. My…well, I don’t know what happened to the knife now. I had used it at the station, so…that’s gone.”

Jon wanted to be sick. Every day, in the bathroom right across the room from him, Shawn was nearly killing himself. “Wait, so that time you took a shower then came out and your arm was….the auto shop excuse…”

“Yeah,” Shawn said looking down at his feet, “Yeah I had just cut pretty bad. I just-”

Shawn was interrupted by the buzzing of the door. The pizza had arrived. Allan went to the door and paid for the pizza. He put it on the coffee table and sat back down, just looking between Shawn and Turner.

Turner didn’t want to eat. He just pictured his bathroom floor covered in blood. How could he have not known about all of this? He felt like a failure, he wasn’t equipped to raise a teenager. “Eat some food.” He waited until Shawn had grabbed a slice of pizza before he continued. “Alright, well, the knife is gone. Never made it back with you, thank God. I think a new rule for right now is that we shave together in the morning and I hold on to the razors. I’m not going to baby-proof the apartment Shawn, unless you feel that you can’t be around kitchen knives or school scissors. I trust that you are going to try and make the effort to go to anyone whenever you feel you want to hurt yourself.”

Shawn finished his slice of pizza and stared at the box. “I can’t promise it will never happen again. Um, but I can promise to talk to you guys more often. I just, I don’t want to bother everyone. If it’s 2 in the morning and-”

“If it’s 2 in the morning, you wake someone up and talk about it,” Allan stated before reaching for his second slice of pizza.

“Right. Well, I won’t be using kitchen knives Jon. So we don’t need to go that far.” Shawn grabbed more pizza and was hoping that they could stop talking soon.

“Sounds great. One more thing we do need to talk about is when you are going to get back to school.” Jon Turner didn’t want to have to make Shawn go to school yet. He himself hadn’t been back yet and he didn’t know what the students knew about the situation or what the rumors would be. He was totally unsure of how to handle anything anymore.

They made the decision to let Shawn start school again on Monday. He could stay home the rest of the week as long as he was doing his school work to catch up. Jon would call Feeny and have him come by later to talk with both himself and Shawn about what reactions were happening at school. Jon figured he should start Monday as well, but they would need to talk it all over.

***************

After school that day, Cory and Topanga went over to Turner’s. They were elated that Shawn was out of the hospital. As they were arriving, Jon moved to the other room to call Feeny and ask him to stop by tonight to talk about getting back to school.

As soon as Shawn opened the door, Cory hugged him tighter than ever before.

“Shawnie!!! How’s it feel to know that teachers are _letting_ you miss school? Cause let me tell you, without you there, I think I accidently learned something in Feeny’s class the other day. And I would not recommend doing that.”

Shawn smiled and laughed as Cory moved over to the couch and Topanga entered the apartment.

“Hey Shawn, I got a little something for you. A welcome home present,” she said as she pulled a wrapped gift from behind her back.

“You really didn’t need to do that Topanga,” Shawn said taking the present and sitting next to Cory on the couch.

“I wanted to though. Just open it, it’s nothing special anyway.”

Shawn opened the gift and smiled. It was a lovely hard cover journal. He adored it and was so grateful that she got him something he secretly wanted since he found out he liked to write.

“Topanga…” he didn’t know how to tell her how special it really was. “I love it so much.” He got off the couch and hugged her, “More than you could ever know.”

Shawn sat back down and flipped through the blank pages. Cory smiled and patted Shawn’s shoulder. “Alright buddy, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I guess we could watch TV or something. They only had old, pre-approved movies in the ward, so I haven’t really seen anything in a while.”

Cory reached for the remote and turned on the TV, clicking through until he found something good. They sat for a while and watched TV and made small talk until Shawn finally asked, “Hey guys, what are they saying about me in school?”

Topanga glanced over to Cory, hoping he would take the lead on this one.

Cory turned down the volume slightly and turned to look at Shawn.

“There are a lot of rumors,” Cory started. “Since both you and Turner are out at the same time, some people are saying you stole his bike and he’s out there trying to find you, some of the girls are worried you are out with mono and they’re gonna be sick from kissing you or something, but… um, some people know the truth. They don’t know it’s the truth, they think it’s just another rumor, but, well, it’s out there too.”

Shawn thought about this. He would have to figure out what story he was going to go with. But he was glad that the truth was disguised as just another rumor.

By 5 o’clock, Cory and Topanga left to get home for dinner. Shawn was left sitting on the couch with his new support system- the journal. He took a pen from the end table and opened to the first page. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, only that he wanted to say something. So he just wrote random words from his head. Eventually, he ended up with half a poem and half a letter to himself. As he closed the book, Jon came out on his crutches and told him Feeny had wholeheartedly agreed that he needed to speak to them and he would be over at 7 that evening. Jon made his way over to the kitchen and started making dinner for Shawn and himself before Feeny came.

*************

Seven o’clock rolled around and Feeny showed up right on time with a folder of homework assignments for Shawn. He didn’t bring all of the work because he knew it would overwhelm Shawn, but he also knew Shawn wasn’t going to do all the work, so he brought the bare minimum for now.

Shawn took the work and placed it on the coffee table then offered a seat to Feeny.

As Feeny sat down he looked at Jon and nodded slightly. Jon spoke first. “Shawn, we need to talk about what’s been happening since you’ve been out.”

The young man nodded and looked towards Mr. Feeny.

“First off, it’s been agreed you will come back Monday. All your other teachers know the situation and have put together the work you’ve missed. Cory will bring it to you after school for the next couple days. What I brought you is the bare minimum you have to do in order to stay in school.” He paused, adjusting his glasses and looked from Shawn to Mr. Turner before continuing.

“The other important issue is we must discuss what the other students have been saying-”

Shawn interrupted, “Oh, I know, Cory told me they have like 3 rumors going around and they don’t know which one is the truth.”

Feeny sighed, “Yes that’s true Mr. Hunter. But unfortunately, one of our student’s fathers is a doctor at the hospital you were at. Somehow this student knew you were staying there. While it still may be a rumor to them, I am positive that the students will pester you about what happened. We have no intention of making a big deal out of this, but you need to know what you’re walking into.”

The new silence in the room was too much for Shawn’s comfort, so he began to think out loud. “Well, there’s no way they’re going to know for sure. If I just don’t say anything, you know, they can just assume what they want. Right?”

“We can see how that works Mr. Hunter. Just take care of yourself and do your work for the rest of the week.”

Shawn nodded and Turner began to get up, “Thanks for coming over George-”

“Oh no, not at all, Jon,” said Feeny interrupting. “Sit down; I will see you on Monday as well.”


	9. Chapter 9

Monday came far too soon for anyone’s liking. Shawn was glad to not be sitting around the apartment all day, but he really didn’t want to face the questions from the students. Jon was glad to get back to work, but he was very nervous about how Shawn would handle being back in school.

Jon decided that Shawn and Cory should go to school together that morning instead of Shawn getting there early with Jon.

Cory went over to Turner’s apartment to get Shawn at about 7:30 that morning.

“Hey man, ready to go?” Cory asked as Shawn opened the door.

“Uh, yeah. Let me just get my jacket,” Shawn replied while he went to get his leather coat. He was already wearing a t-shirt and a zip up hoodie. He hadn’t worn short sleeves around anyone for years, and he was used to wearing layers. The arm he destroyed with his knife 2 weeks ago was still covered with gauze to protect the stitches, but his other arm didn’t need any bandages because the cuts had healed and were on their way to becoming scars. He hadn’t shown his arms to anyone yet. He got used to everyone knowing about his cutting, but that didn’t mean he wanted his closest friends gawking at the scars. He didn’t know Alan had seen in the hospital but he knew Cory had seen because he was the one who found him. But they never really talked about what it was like for Cory. Shawn knew it was bad and he felt like shit for Cory having to see that, so he just never brought it up.

As Shawn grabbed his bag and headed out the door, he was glad Cory was there with him. They made it to school with 10 minutes before the bell. They went to their lockers and put away their bags, grabbing only what they needed for their first class after homeroom. Shawn got several stares as he stood at his locker with Cory waiting for Topanga to come by. People whispered, but no one came up to him.

“Hey Cory,” Topanga said with a kiss. “Welcome back Shawn, how was your trip?” She asked loud enough for people passing by to hear.

The three had decided that the best way to handle the situation was to keep it vague. The less people knew, the better. If they just played it off like Shawn was off on a random vacation, no one would ask questions.

“Good, Topanga. Thanks,” Shawn replied, closing his locker.

The bell rang then and everyone shuffled off to class. “Everyone to class now,” Feeny said passing by. “Good to see you back, Mr. Hunter.”

Shawn nodded and walked with Cory and Topanga into Mr. Turner’s homeroom. He sat down in his usual seat and quietly endured the stares. He knew he would get them all day.

The rest of the morning went along without incident. Lunch time rolled around and Cory and Shawn sat on the ledge near the pay phone as they normally did. Shawn was eating his lunch and talking to Cory when his day took a turn for the worse.

Crandall Wilson was a punk who usually left Shawn alone. He usually liked to pick on the other trailer park kids, but Shawn had fought with the guy enough that they left each other alone. Unfortunately, today was a bit different. Today he had his couple lackeys with him as he approached Shawn and Cory.

“Shawn, I always knew the trailer trash would end up in a cell, just never thought it would be a padded one.” Crandall’s friends laughed and waited for more.

“Just back off Crandall,” Shawn said looking up from his lunch.

“See, my dad’s a doctor, and I found it interesting when you were at his place of business rather than here in school. I thought your dad might work there too, but then I remembered, you don’t have one, so I was real confused.” Crandall moved closer towards Shawn.

“See, there’s these rumors about where you were for the past couple weeks. I tried to let everyone know the truth for you, but people just don’t seem to want to believe me.”

Shawn got up from the ledge and stood in front of Crandall. “I said- back off.”

“Just do us a favor, let us know where you all were, it sounds real fun.”

“You know, you can do me a favor. Bleed.” Shawn punched Crandall in the stomach and was fully prepared for the fight. Crandall was too, however. He punched Shawn back and soon they were on the floor wrestling to see who could do the most damage. Two teachers finally pulled them off the ground, but Crandall got the last move by pulling Shawn’s hoodie off in the last minute.

Time seemed to stop for Shawn. He stopped struggling against the teacher and froze. The students who had gathered to watch the fight all stared at Shawn, many with mouths dropped. Crandall started laughing as Cory went and took Shawn’s hoodie from Crandall and went over to Shawn.

“Oh little emo boy, the truth is out now isn’t it-” Crandall was cut off.

“We’re going to Feeny’s Crandall, NOW!” the teacher said as he walked Crandall to Feeny’s office.

Shawn just stood in the middle of the hallway, staring at the spot where Crandall used to be standing. He felt a hand on his back, guiding him into Turner’s classroom.

Once inside, Cory closed the door and sat Shawn down in his seat and looked to Mr. Turner. The classroom was empty except for Turner sitting at his desk grading papers. He looked up at the boys and instantly figured out what happened when he saw Shawn’s exposed arms.

“Oh no…” Turner said as he grabbed his crutches to get up.

Cory handed Shawn his hoodie and tried to get him to snap out of it. “Shawn… Shawn, it’s going to be okay. Just breathe.”

Shawn didn’t say anything. He just took his hoodie in his hand and stared at the floor.

Turner made his way over to Shawn and sat on the desk across from Shawn. “Shawn, what happened? Do you want to go home? Are you alright?”

When Cory realized Shawn wasn’t going to speak, he started telling Turner what happened. Turner sighed and ran his hand over his face. He looked at Shawn’s arms and knew Alan was right, the kid’s arm was a mess, and that wasn’t even the one that was most recently cut.

Turner made a quick decision; he needed to handle this properly. “Alright… Cory, go call your mom to pick up Shawn. Then go tell Feeny you’re both going home.”

Cory walked back out into the hallway. Most of the students had dispersed, but some were still huddled together whispering and watching as Cory went over to the pay phone. After calling his mom and saying as little as he needed to, he went to Feeny’s office. The secretary told him to wait; Feeny was in there with another student. Cory knew Crandall was the one inside. Several minutes later, the door opened and Crandall walked out. As Cory stood up, Crandall took his place in the seat and waited for his own parents. Mr. Feeny noticed Cory and waved him into the office.

“Mr. Feeny, Turner had me call my mom. She’s going to take Shawn and I home,” Cory said as he closed the door and took a seat.

“Yes, I do think that is for the best. How is Shawn dealing with this?”

“He’s not really… He’s just staring at nothing, like he’s in shock. He’s in Turner’s room right now.”

Feeny sighed; he had no idea what he was supposed to do in a situation like this. Word was probably around the entire school about what had happened with Shawn. “Right, well, just take him home and keep him safe. Crandall has been suspended for a week and will have to meet with the school counselor.”

Cory nodded and got up from his chair, “Thanks Mr. Feeny.”

Cory left the office and headed back to Turner’s room. He opened the door and was glad to see that Shawn seemed to be paying attention as Turner talked to him. Shawn wasn’t saying anything, but he was aware of his surroundings now and had put his hoodie back on.

Turner was saying something about when Shawn’s next therapy appointment was. Cory closed the door and took a seat on his desk, facing Shawn.

“My mom will be here in about 5 minutes. Feeny said we’re fine to leave and Crandall’s been suspended. He’ll have to meet with the school counselor. Do you have a class next period Mr. Turner?”

Jon nodded. This was his free period and students were going to be coming in at the bell in a couple minutes. “Yeah, how about you boys grab your stuff from your lockers and go wait out front. Kids will be coming in soon.”

Cory looked to Shawn and watched him stand up. It seemed to take all of Shawn’s energy just to get out of the seat. Cory also got up and moved so he could walk in front of Shawn. He opened the door and looked to see how many kids were still around. Many of them had left to go towards their classes. The kids around now were mainly the ones whose classes were in the vicinity. Cory and Shawn walked over to their lockers and grabbed their stuff. Kids were staring, but Shawn didn’t seem to notice. He was inside his own head now and he’d most likely be there for a while. He was silent as they walked out of the building and waited for Cory’s mom. The bell rang and Cory leaned against the brick of the building. He didn’t know what to say, so he stayed quiet, letting Shawn be.

Several minutes later, Amy drove up and waited for the boys to get in the car. Cory sat in the back seat with Shawn and was thankful his mom stayed quiet for the drive home.

Once they arrived at the Matthews’, Cory and Shawn went into the living room.

“How about I make you guys some sandwiches? I take it you didn’t finish eating lunch.” Amy said putting her purse down. “Shawn, I think we should change your bandages and make sure your stitches weren’t pulled during the fight.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks mom, sounds great.” Cory put his bag on the floor and watched Shawn as he sat on the couch. He needed to get Shawn to talk now. It probably wasn’t good to keep it all to himself after all. Amy had left the room to grab the first aid kit. Cory just sat in the chair next to the couch and waited for his mom to come back. When Amy returned to the room, she sat down next to Shawn on the couch.

“Shawn, honey? I need you to take off your jacket and hoodie,” Amy said trying to keep things light.

Shawn didn’t say anything, but he quietly obliged and removed his layers. When his arms were exposed for the second time that day, Amy removed the bandage covering his stitched arm. She could see that there was a small amount of blood that had started to seep onto the white gauze.

As she unwrapped his arm, Shawn could feel the bandage pull at his stitched cuts. Some of the blood had dried and taking off the bandage meant that the half-formed scabs were being pulled off. He watched Amy unwrap his arm and he was brought out of his head. His daze seemed to be lifted, but he still had nothing to say. He didn’t want Cory and his mom to know how glad he was to see his own blood again.

“Ok, well, it’s not so bad,” Amy said as she placed the old bandage on the table and reached for an antiseptic wipe and a new roll of gauze. “This might sting a bit...”

Cory just watched his mom clean up Shawn’s arm and realized it was the first time he’d seen Shawn’s injuries since the bus station. There was one long stitched cut that ran the length of his forearm. There were several other vertical cuts along the sides of the main cut and some smaller, horizontal cuts at the base of his wrist. All of these seemed to cover old scars. He pulled his attention away from Shawn’s arms and completely looked at his best friend. He could see how alone Shawn still felt. He could see how the world had torn at Shawn and left him the hollow shell of his best friend. He could tell Shawn had a weight on his shoulders that never seemed to leave him alone.

Amy finished fixing Shawn up and went into the kitchen. “I’ll be back with some food in a bit.”

Cory moved over to the couch and finally decided he needed to talk to Shawn. “Shawn, I know you might not want to talk about all this, but I think we need to.”

Shawn lifted his head and looked at Cory. He gathered his voice and finally spoke, “You’re right Cor. I think we should just talk about all of it, anything. Just ask. I know we’ve talked about some stuff, but I’ve also been avoiding everything else.”

Cory thought for a moment and without realizing what he was going to start with, he just started talking. “You know, this is the first time I’ve seen your arm since I found you. They’ve been covered up ever since. I don’t mind, but it’s just… it brought me back to that bathroom… I was terrified Shawn. There was so much blood and you were barely talking. And then, when I found out you’d been doing this for so long, Shawn, how does making yourself bleed help? I never knew this was something people did…”

Shawn sighed. He knew he scared Cory. He knew he was a horrible person for making his best friend see him sitting in a pool of his own blood.

“I’m sorry Cory. I hate that you had to see me like that. I just… my parents always told me how useless and pathetic I was. My dad… he would usually hit me and let me know I didn’t deserve anything better. And a couple years ago when he finally left, I knew he was finally sick of me. I couldn’t keep staying with you; your parents couldn’t take in another kid, so I went to the bus station. The first cut was an accident. I was going through my bag and my razor cut me…but for some reason it calmed me down. So I kept going. It’s like… the more I bleed, the better I felt. Sometimes I did it because I needed to punish myself. Other times it was so I could feel something. There were days I didn’t feel like I was in my own body- like I was just going through the motions, so the cutting let me know I was still alive. Often, I would cut as a distraction to my own thoughts. Sometimes my mind just races with all the shit going on in my life and it hurts so much inside, but, if I cut, I could hurt on the outside instead because I knew how to handle the physical pain. Plus, then I would have to clean up and that would take my mind off things for a bit.”

This was a lot for Cory to take in. He never realized how complicated all of Shawn’s thoughts really were. In the hospital when Shawn said there were a lot of reasons, Cory just wrote it off as Shawn not being ready to talk about it, but there truly were so many different thought processes that Shawn had with this. Cory was unsure what to say. Instead he just took Shawn and hugged him.

“Here’s some sandwiches boy,” Amy said as she walked in. She placed them on the coffee table and quickly left. She had heard what Shawn said. She was going to walk in earlier, but didn’t want to interrupt him, so she waited at the kitchen door with their food until the right moment.

Once Amy was out of the room again, Cory let go of Shawn and looked at him. “Thanks Shawn. Whenever you need to talk, I’m here. Are you okay from today?”

Shawn looked at the plate Amy left on the table, “I guess. There’s nothing I can really do. Everyone knows now.”

Cory nodded. He grabbed his sandwich and leaned back on the couch. Shawn turned on the TV and grabbed his sandwich as well. “No one will probably bother me anymore anyway. As long as they think I’m crazy, they’ll be too scared and they’ll leave me alone.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV and playing video games. They’d do some homework when Topanga came over after school and Shawn would have to return to school the next day.


	10. Chapter 10

As it turns out, being the suicidal, cute, bad boy can do wonders for the sympathy dating scene. Shawn returned to school the next day in a black long sleeve shirt and ignored the stares. What he couldn’t ignore was the handful of notes that fell out of his locker when he opened it. Word had, of course, gotten around what had happened to Shawn and now he figured half the stares were that of pity and the other half of judgment.

Cory rounded the corner and stopped at his locker. “Dude, what’s with the notes? You got some secret girlfriend now?”

Shawn laughed and bent down to pick up the couple notes that fell. He put them at the bottom of his locker but kept one and opened. It was a note written in perfect handwriting with hearts above the ‘i’s.

“Ah, well Denise says she hopes I get better and she would love to help in any way she can, xoxo,” Shawn read to Cory.

He put Denise’s note in his locker and unfolded another one and read, “Cheryl said she is available to talk and is free this Saturday for a date.”

Cory smirked, “Well, nothing can take you away from the ladies, Shawnie.”

Shawn scoffed and stuck all the notes in his bag; he would read them later, if he felt like it. He could tell they would probably all be like that. “Yeah, guess they like the crazy look just as much as they like bad boy look.”

Cory got his books for class and closed his locker. “Well maybe things will be easier then…”

Shawn shrugged as he closed his locker. He was just glad that summer break was coming next week and they could all go on summer break and forget about him. He might read the notes, but he wasn’t going to go out with any of the girls. He didn’t want their pity dates. They just wanted him because they wanted a cute boy they could save and fix. He didn’t want their charity and he didn’t want to be their project. He saved their numbers though, just in case he needed a one night stand later on.

***************************

Finishing sophomore year went surprisingly well, as did the summer. That’s at least what Shawn wanted everyone to think. He did really well for the last week of school and a couple weeks in the summer. But as summer went on Shawn grew bored and his thoughts keep leading back to how much he wanted to cut himself open. He would be sitting watching TV with Cory and he would suddenly need to slice his wrists apart. He never gave in though. He kept it to himself and wrote about it. He didn’t know how to explain that he was just bored and needed to stop himself from thinking. He always thought about where his parents were or if they were happy he wasn’t with them. He knew they were. They always used to tell him that they would be better off if they never had him. He was glad they were gone but he also wondered what was so wrong with him that they would leave him.

He didn’t give into his desire to cut until his mother returned at the end of the summer. It was completely unexpected and Shawn panicked. It was a week before school and Shawn had just walked in the front door into the living room to the Matthews’ home. He and Cory were planning on having a horror movie marathon.

“Shawn… I saw your mom yesterday,” Cory said after Shawn sat down.

“Not funny dude,” Shawn said looking through the movies he brought.

“I’m not kidding. I think she’s staying at the motel across from the trailer park.”

Shawn looked up at Cory and didn’t know what to say. He wanted to see his mom because he wanted to have a mother, but he knew she didn’t love him. She told him enough times that he knew she didn’t want him.

“Ok, well… whatever,” Shawn finally said as he went back to picking a movie.

Cory saw that Shawn didn’t want to talk about it. For some reason Shawn didn’t want to see his mom and Cory wasn’t going to press the issue. He left it alone and they commenced their movie marathon.

What Shawn didn’t tell Cory was that he wasn’t okay with his mom being back. After the third movie, Cory fell asleep. It was roughly 1:30 in the morning and Shawn couldn’t sleep. The Matthews’ house was quiet and Shawn couldn’t stop his thoughts. He tried to write, but nothing came onto the paper. He knew he shouldn’t, but he decided he needed to go for a walk.

Once he got outside he felt the heat of the August night hit him. Without realizing where he was heading, he ended up at the park. He sat on a bench across from the playground. He really loved this playground. He had grown up playing here with Cory and Topanga and even running here some nights after his father would beat him and his mother would tell him to just leave.

He knew he was really stupid to come out here by himself like this. He knew what he wanted to do. He felt the familiar tingle of his skin wanting to be torn open. He would give anything to have his knife back. He was tired of ignoring the thoughts and having to ‘recover’. He would disappoint everyone if he gave in. But honestly, they didn’t understand. They didn’t know what it was really like to hate everything that he was. He hated that he couldn’t get close to any girls he dated. He wanted to have what Cory and Topanga had. He hated that he made everyone worry about him. He hated that everyone had to adjust their lives for him just because his parents didn’t want him. He hated that he couldn’t be good enough for his parents to love him. The more he thought the more he wanted to give in. He looked around the park. There had to be something around. He started crying when he realized what he was doing. _Was he so pathetic that he was searching a children’s park for sharp objects that he could hurt himself with_. He gave up and just started walking back to the Matthews’. He walked and cried silently until he reached the door. He took several deep breaths and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen. The kitchen was still dark and it didn’t look like anyone was up. He slowly opened the door to the living room and was so glad that Cory was still asleep on the couch. He sighed and closed the door. He walked over to the kitchen sink and splashed water on his face. The cool water felt good against the heat of his face. As he turned off the sink and dried his face on his shirt, he noticed the block of knifes on the kitchen counter. He stared at them and started to hate himself again. _Was he really thinking about using a kitchen knife? Amy used those to cut the food that made the family dinners. He can’t seriously do that. Everyone was beginning to trust him again._

Shawn quickly grabbed the smallest knife in the block. It was a paring knife that was sharp but able to fit in his pocket. He stuck it in his pocket and walked to the bathroom. He didn’t have to do it. He just liked having the knife with him. It was 2:30 a.m. now but he was still wide awake. He sat on the floor of the bathroom against the door and closed his eyes, trying to fight the negative thoughts in his head.

**You’re useless…** _No, I’m not._ **No one loves you…** _I have lots of people that love me._ **You’re just trailer trash that doesn’t deserve to be happy…**

Shawn didn’t have a response to his last thought. He always knew that was the truth. He never deserved any of these people. They all tell him that he’s worth so much, but what is he even good at? He’s only good at hurting himself and the people around him.

He pulls the knife out of his pocket. _Just one won’t ruin everything._ Shawn looked at the knife and rolled up his sleeve. He couldn’t risk his wrist. Someone might see a cut if the cuff of his sleeve rides up. He placed the knife on his forearm near the bend in his elbow. Once the knife was in place, he stopped thinking and just made the swift movement as his skin opened. It was so normal to him. He loved that his skin still knew how to break open so easily. After his third cut his brain began to work again. He realized he only meant to make one cut. Luckily there wasn’t so much blood. He quickly put the knife in his pocket and grabbed some toilet paper. He pressed the paper to his cuts and waited for the bleeding to stop. It took about 5 minutes until he could roll down his sleeve. He stuck the bloody paper in his pocket with the knife and washed his hands. He looked at himself in the mirror and finally felt like he would be able to sleep. He left the bathroom and went back to the living room. As he sat back down on the couch to sleep Cory sleepily opened his eyes.

“Shawn? What time is it?”

“Around 2:30,” Shawn replied doing his best to sound like he too had been sleeping.

“Where were you?”

“Just had to use the bathroom Cor- too much soda during the movies. Now shut up, I’m trying to sleep.”

Cory shrugged and closed his eyes. Shawn fell asleep a couple minutes later.

**************

The next morning Cory woke up first. It was 10 o’ clock and Cory was due to meet Topanga for lunch at noon. He decided to wake Shawn up now so they could eat some breakfast. With a groan, Shawn woke up and the two boys went to grab some cereal from the kitchen. As they ate they talked about the movies from last night and then what their plans were for the day. Cory talked about a cute picnic he had planned for Topanga and Shawn lied about how he might go out on a date that night. After they ate, Cory drove Shawn back to Turner’s apartment.

Back at home, Cory got ready for his picnic with Topanga. After getting cleaned up, he went into the kitchen to get the food. His mom was in the kitchen making lunch for the rest of the family.

“Hey mom,” Cory said as he started making sandwiches at the counter.

“Oh hey Cor. Do you want some fresh fruit for your picnic?” Amy asked with a smile.

“Yeah mom, that’d be great!”

Amy grabbed half of a watermelon out of the fridge. Since it was the end of the summer, it was on sale and she couldn’t pass it up. She placed it on the counter and went to get knife.

“Cor, do you have the paring knife?” Amy asked as she grabbed a different knife to cut the watermelon.

“No, why?” Cory replied not looking up from his task.

“Well, it’s not with the others. I just used it yesterday and I know I put it away.”

Cory shrugged, “That’s weird. Maybe someone used it this morning or something.”

Amy accepted the suggestion and started cutting the fruit. “So how was the marathon? Scary enough?”

Cory laughed, “Yeah, it’s scary how horrible some of these people can be at acting.”

Amy laughed and grabbed some Tupperware for the watermelon.

Cory finished making the two sandwiches and placed them in the basket. He looked at his mother and watched as she carefully cut the watermelon and placed pieces into the Tupperware. “Mom… I’m not sure what to do. I think Shawn’s mom is back in town.”

“Did you tell Shawn yet? How will he feel about this?” Amy stopped cutting the watermelon and looked at Cory.

“I told him last night. He got kind of weird, but said it didn’t matter…”

“Cory… was Shawn ever alone last night?” Amy asked, getting worried.

“No, we fell asleep in the living room watching the movies. He went to the bathroom alone obviously, but…oh…” Cory wished he was wrong, but he somehow knew that Shawn had cut again. He had a weird feeling that Shawn wasn’t okay. “I think I may know where your knife is…”

Amy sighed. “Oh…I hope you’re wrong. I’m going to call Turner.”

Cory quietly packed the rest of the picnic basket. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to go talk to Shawn, but Shawn obviously didn’t want any help. Cory was sitting right next to Shawn last night and Shawn didn’t even bother to wake him up and talk to him. Once the picnic was ready, Cory left without a word. Amy watched her son leave for his date as she waited for Jon to answer the phone.

“Turner speaking.”

“Hi Jon, it’s Amy. We need to talk about Shawn,” Amy said with a sigh.

Jon paused, “Shawn isn’t home yet, what’s up?”

Amy was confused. Cory took Shawn home an hour ago. “I think Shawn cut himself again last night… Cory said Shawn’s mom is back in town and Shawn is acting odd about it. ”

Jon didn’t know what to say.

She kept talking, “Cory brought Shawn back to your place an hour ago…”

Jon’s mind jumped to the worst possible outcome. “Amy, do you think he’d try it again?”

“I have no idea Jon. I really hope not. I’ll tell Alan and George and we’ll start looking.”

Jon nearly dropped the phone as the apartment door opened. “No need Amy, Shawn just walked in.”

“Oh thank goodness! Make sure he’s okay Jon. Call back if you need.” Amy heard a goodbye and hung up. She was relieved that they didn’t need to go through another suicide attempt. She didn’t think that anyone could handle that.

*************

Shawn closed the door and watched as Turner walked over to him. “Where have you been Shawn? I just got a call from Mrs. Matthews and she’s…”

“I went for a walk... Cory said my mom was back and I had to go see for myself.” Shawn was going to lie, but he knew that he didn’t need to, Jon would understand. Besides, he didn’t actually see his mom. He just walked to the motel and checked with the manager to see if his mom was really there.

“So is she?” Jon asked, calming down. Now that he knew Shawn was alright, he didn’t need to be so tense.

“Yeah. Yeah Jon, she is.” Shawn didn’t know how he felt. He hated when he couldn’t figure out his basic emotions. He was too conflicted to even think straight. He wanted to cut again. He could feel the knife in his pocket and it yearned to see his skin. His skin felt heavy and he wanted to cry.

Jon could see Shawn was withdrawing into himself. He would lose Shawn in this moment if he didn’t do something. He motioned to the couch, “Shawn, sit down. What are you thinking about?”

Shawn sat down and fell silent. He could barely figure out what he was thinking, how could he possibly put it into words?

“You want to cut right now don’t you,” Jon asked carefully. He didn’t want to put the idea into Shawn’s head, but he could tell Shawn wanted it.

Shawn just looked at the coffee table and nodded. Jon rubbed his own neck with his hand and sighed. “Alright. Just talk me through what’s going on.”

The silence in the apartment was only broken by the midday traffic outside. Shawn was unsure of how talk about what was going on in his mind.

“If you can’t talk to me, just think out loud and I’ll listen.”

Shawn shook his head but found himself talking anyway. “She’s my mom right? I mean, I should go see her. But I can’t. She doesn’t want to see me. That’s why she left…But if she’s back…if she’s back, dad will come back. Dad always wanted to find her. They probably both get along now because they both hate me so much. That’s the only thing they ever agreed on… They are just here because they know I’ve been taking advantage of everyone’s help and they don’t like it. They know I don’t deserve to be here…”

Shawn suddenly went silent. Jon didn’t like the thoughts Shawn was having. He didn’t know what to say. He’d told Shawn time and time again how much he was wanted and loved, what more could he say? He was suddenly glad when there was knock at the door. He looked at Shawn and then got up to get the door. Shawn was sitting silently on the couch still staring at the coffee table. His hand was in his pocket and he seemed to be lost in his thoughts again.

Shawn had stopped talking because he realized he was going to starting talking about killing himself again. If he mentioned those thoughts out loud he’d be back in the hospital, locked in a ward and talking to a therapist. He put his hand in his pocket with the knife and ran his thumb over the sharp tip. He’d meant to return it last night. He knew he’d be found out if he kept it, but he honestly forgot.

Shawn heard the door open and a loud southern voice, “Hey Shawnie, momma’s home.” Shawn’s thumb slipped and he could feel the knife rip into his thumb.

 

**A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger. I had horrid writer’s block when I realized that the timing for some of the situations didn’t add up as I tried to follow the episodes kind of. So I really, really hated writing this chapter and I’m sorry if it kind of sucks. I just didn’t know how to transition to the next part of the story without just saying, “then it was next year” So I filled in the gap. Let me know of any good/bad.**


	11. Chapter 11

“Well don’t just sit there baby, come give momma a hug!” Shawn’s mom entered the apartment, ignoring Jon.

Jon closed the door behind her and watched as Shawn didn’t move. He just stared at her as she went and sat on the couch next to him.

She gave him a hug and looked him over. “Well you look just terrible. Good thing I’m here to take you home and get you looking normal.”

Jon didn’t think Shawn would talk anytime soon so he took the lead. “Hi, I’m Jonathan Turner, I’m your son’s legal guardian. You must be Virna.”

Virna turned and smiled. “Why thank you for taking such good care of my boy,” she said shaking his hand. “Sorry for any inconvenience.”

“No, it’s no inconvenience at all. I love having him here. I actually don’t think it’s a good idea if he leave right now,” Jon said knowing he might not win this.

“Ah, well, he’s my boy and he really should come home with his mother now. We’ve had such a long time away from each other and we need to catch up.” She turned back to Shawn. “Shawn, you should go get your things. I have a new trailer and we’re gonna be right back with the old neighbors.”

Shawn looked up at Jon for just a moment, but Jon could see the pain and pleading in Shawn’s eyes.

“Virna, he has a lot of stuff here, how about I bring him down in time for dinner. That might be easier,” Jon said, hoping to buy more time.

“Great idea! I will go get the trailer set up all nice. I’ve been stayin’ in the hotel all week until I got the trailer set, but I was plannin’ on movin’ back in yesterday. Good thing I didn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t have found out my baby was here. Manager at the hotel said a kid was asking for me. I knew it’d be my little Shawnine. Lucky for me, I saw him walking back here!”

Jon nodded and opened the door for her. She kissed Shawn on the cheek and left, “See you tonight sweetie!”

Jon closed the door and sat down next to Shawn. They sat in silence for a moment while Jon tried to think of what to say. “I don’t know if I can technically stop her from taking you Shawn.”

He hoped with all his being that he could somehow make this all go away. He had legal custody, but at the same time, Shawn’s mother never signed the paper, so she could go to court and they would have to make Shawn live with her.

“I can’t live with her Jon.”

That was all Jon needed to hear. He would find any way he could to keep Shawn out of that home. He had no idea how he would do it, but he knew that Virna had done more to Shawn than just abandon him. Shawn never mentioned his mom in the abuse, but the way the kid reacted to her, Jon knew she had some part in it.

“Shawn, I am going to fight for you. I can’t promise this is going to go well. You may have to stay with her for a night or two until I get in touch with my lawyer… See, she’s still your mother and never agreed for me to be your guardian. So by law, she can take you home right now if she had wanted-”

Shawn listened to Jon and slowly sliced his other fingers open inside his pocket. He didn’t even realize he was doing it. He wasn’t even thinking about the knife.

“Shawn? What are you doing?” Jon had been watching Shawn move his hand oddly. “Let me see your hand.”

As if being snapped out his trance, Shawn looked towards his pocket and pulled his hand out. Jon was confused as he watched Shawn look surprised at the sight of his own hand. His thumb, pointer, and middle finger were bleeding from deep cuts as if Shawn had just gone over the same place over and over again with a knife.

Jon got up and grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen counter. “Shawn, did you know what you were doing?”

“Hmm? No… uh, no. I just… I didn’t realize…” Shawn took the paper towel from Jon and pressed them into his fingers.

“What is it in your pocket? Give it to me.” Jon gently demanded.

Shawn removed the paper towel for a moment and pulled out the knife and gave it to Jon. He then wrapped his fingers back into the paper towel and waited for the bleeding to stop.

Jon sighed and went to get a first aid kit. He took the knife with him and threw it in the garbage in his own room. He returned to the couch and started to look over Shawn’s fingers.

“Alright. They don’t look too bad,” he mumbled as he wrapped each fingertip in gauze and tape. “I need to call the Matthews. Do you want to call your therapist?”

Shawn shook his head. He really wasn’t a fan of therapy. It cost a lot of money and he didn’t like talking to someone who was only helping him because she got paid.

Turner picked up the phone and moved towards the kitchen. He didn’t want to leave the room but he wanted to give Shawn some space.

Amy picked up on the fourth ring. “Amy? It’s Jon... We have a problem. Can I bring Shawn over and we’ll all talk about this?”

Amy of course agreed and Jon said they would be over in 10 minutes. She hung up called up the stairs to Alan and Eric.

“‘Sup mom?” Eric asked as he bounded down the stairs to the kitchen.

“Eric honey, I need you to drop Morgan off at her friend Amanda’s house and then come back. I was supposed to take her in a couple minutes.”

“Awe mom, why do I have to do it?”

“Because there’s been a problem. Cory is out somewhere with Topanga and I need you to sit with Shawn while your father and I talk with Jon.”

Eric finally understood. Something serious was happening with Shawn again. He never really hung out with the kid without Cory, but he liked him. Shawn was a great friend to Cory and they were all like brothers. He hugged his mother and went up to get Morgan, passing his dad on the stairs.

“What is it Amy? I’ve got a broken sink in the boy’s bathroom that calls to me as well.”

“There’s a problem with Shawn. Jon didn’t explain a lot, but Cory told me earlier that Shawn’s mom is back and then Shawn went missing for about an hour and a half this morning.”

Alan sighed. He didn’t understand why life never cut the kid a break. When he thought things could only get better for Shawn, another curveball was thrown into the game. Alan went to the kitchen sink and washed his hands. Eric rushed down the stairs with Morgan right behind.

“See you in a couple minutes mom,” Eric said grabbing his keys off the table.

***************

The kitchen door finally opened 10 minutes later.

“Found these kids in the driveway,” Eric said leading in Shawn and Jon. They arrived at the same time and Eric was glad he wasn’t late. “Shawn, wanna go watch the Real World?”

“Uh, sure Eric,” Shawn said putting his hands in his pockets and following Eric into the living room.

Jon closed the door and ran his hand through his hair.

Alan looked at the man and he seemed exhausted. “What’s going on?”

Jon took a seat at the kitchen table and saw the Matthews take their seats as well. “Shawn’s mom is back and wants him to live with her at the trailer park. Shawn is a disaster. He had a knife in his pocket and didn’t even realize that he was slicing his fingers open as his mom was talking to him-”

Amy’s mouth dropped slightly, “Wait, he saw his mom?”

“Yeah, she followed him home after he went to see if she was really at the motel. She came to my apartment to get him. Luckily I said I’d bring him by later so he didn’t have to leave right then…He doesn’t want to live with her. I know he’s terrified.”

“Well there’s no need for him to leave your place-” Amy started.

“Legally, she can take him. She never signed the guardianship papers, so technically she’s still his mom and can force him to live where ever she wants. I told him I’d fight, and I will, but he might have to stay with her until I can sort it out legally if she forces it.”

Alan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Any mentions of Chett being with her?”

“I don’t think so, but I think she’s played her part in the abuse. He couldn’t even speak when she was in the apartment.”

Amy covered her mouth with her hand. She didn’t want to have to think about Shawn being hurt so much.

“If she’s here, dad isn’t far behind,” Shawn said from the doorway. His voice was flat as he walked slowly into the kitchen.

“Mom, I tried to keep him-” Eric started.

“It’s fine, honey, he should talk to us about this anyway.”

Shawn took that as permission to talk. “Dad left to go and find her and he’ll follow her back here. I just…I can’t live with her. She doesn’t love me. Why would she ever love me?”

Amy started crying and Alan rubbed her back. “Alright Shawn, don’t worry. Jon and I have to take you there tonight. We’ll talk with her and see if we can get her to just leave you with us, but if she wants, you’re going to have to stay there.”

Shawn nodded and rubbed his eyes. He tried not to cry. If he was going back that would mean he couldn’t cry again. His mother may not be as physical with him, but she was brutal in her own way.  
**************

Evening rolled around and Alan suggested he drive to the trailer park. It was another silent drive as Shawn stared out the window counting the minutes until they would arrive to his own personal hell.

When they finally arrived, both Alan and Jon were trying to think of the best way to go about this. Alan decided he would go in first to make sure Chett wasn’t there and to talk with Virna. Jon would wait with Shawn until they needed to go in.

Alan walked up to the trailer home and knocked. He really wished she wouldn’t be there, but that would mean something good happened for Shawn, so Virna opened the door.

“Oh, well, it’s Mr. Matthews isn’t it?” Virna said with a smile. “Why don’t you come on in, is Shawn with ya?”

Alan nodded, “He is, but he’s in the car. Virna, I’m here because Shawn is doing really well right now. We think it would be best if Shawn wasn’t uprooted from his current situation. He’s had a lot of change since the last time you saw him and he needs the stability that he has.”

Virna frowned but tried to keep her happy demeanor. “I appreciate that ya’ll been taking care of my son, but I’m here for him now and I want to make sure he gets what he deserves- a mother.”

Jon walked into the trailer as Virna finished talking. “I know you’re his mother Virna, but I think you should know Shawn would rather stay with me for the time being.”

“Well, Mr. Turner, I would rather he stay with me. So let me have my son and he can see you in school tomorrow. Alright?”

“I still do have legal guardianship over Shawn and you will be hearing from my lawyer over custody unless you leave Shawn be.”

Virna scoffed. “No judge would take a son away from his mother and give him to a teacher. You can waste all the time you want but you’ll be leaving my son with me, right now.”

Alan watched as Jon left the trailer and then looked to Virna. “Shawn hunter is the best friend my kid ever had and I will kill to protect him from people like you. We all know about what kind of man Chett was, and I will make sure harm like that does not come to Shawn again.”

Jon walked back to Shawn and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Shawn, she isn’t making it easy. You do have to stay here for the night. But you call me as soon as you need, any time, alright?”

Shawn nodded and quietly grabbed his bag. He didn’t bring all his stuff, he didn’t want her to leave with the house again and leave him with nothing. He did want her to leave though.

He walked into the trailer and looked at his mother. She smiled so sweetly, he recognized it as her public smile. The one she put on for the benefit of others. Alan took a step away from Virna and Shawn wondered what Alan would have been saying.

“Well, this has been lovely; we’ll see you boys another time,” Virna said, stepping towards Shawn. “Shawn, I’ll show you your new room.”

Shawn hugged Alan and then Jon. Alan caught Shawn’s eyes as he closed the door. He saw the life in Shawn’s eyes be replaced with a vast emptiness that rivaled the dead.

***************

Shawn closed the door and turned to his mother. He could see her smile fading.

“You want some dinner honey? We don’t really want to talk about them yet do we? We want to have a nice dinner before I let you know how much I’ve missed you all these years.”

Shawn dropped his bag next to the couch and walked to the table. His mother had made pasta, that’s all she ever made. He never knew if it was because that’s all they could afford or if it was all she knew how to make. It was 6 o’ clock and Shawn only had to make it to 7 a.m. He could just wake up and go to school early, it’s not like she knew what time school started. He ate his dinner in silence as his mother drank her wine. He didn’t think she would be drinking so soon. She was never too much of a drinker. That was always dad’s thing. She always liked to ignore everything, take some sleeping pills and pass out.

He finally finished his dinner and threw the paper plate into the trash. “Thanks for dinner.”

“And he finally speaks to me!” his mother shouted. “I almost thought you went mute while I was gone. It probably would have been good for you, not like you ever had anything good to say- just stupid remarks and complaints. You know why I came back Shawn? I came back to find your daddy. But no, I end up finding you instead. What good are you to me?” She got up from the table with her bottle still in her hand. It was almost finished. Shawn knew what was coming now.

“I come here and find you screwing up these nice people’s lives. You think they actually want you around? This…Tuner guy…you think he wants to put up with your bullshit?”

Shawn backed away towards the couch. “It’s Turner, and yeah, he does want me with him. I’ve been staying with him for years now,” Shawn could hear his voice getting louder and felt his blood rushing to his arms, almost as if they were preparing to be cut open.

“Oh, you think you can yell at me now? I’m your mother damn it! You spend some time with these well-to-do people and suddenly think your better than me?! Well bullshit!” She took the bottle to her lips, finished the rest of her wine and smashed the empty bottle onto Shawn’s head.

As he hit the ground all he could hear was the glass fall around him. It wasn’t until she kicked him in the stomach that he was brought back to the moment and he could hear that she was still yelling at him.

“You’re just another charity case to them! Just the poor little trailer park boy who can’t do anything for himself. And you just take advantage of them.” Virna was completely drunk and lost her balance with her last kick. She fell onto the couch and looked at her son on the floor. She saw the glass lying around her and she realized she needed another drink. As she got up and walked to the fridge for another bottle of wine, Shawn stayed on the floor, too hurt to move. He could feel pieces of glass cutting into his arm. He found it ironic that he would normally have been calmed by having his skin torn open with a sharp object. He almost laughed but his ribs hurt too much. He wondered if they were broken.

Virna returned and took a swig from the wine bottle. She looked at her son and shook her head. After a couple more kicks she sat down on the floor next to him and drank some more wine. She watched as his eyes betrayed him and a couple silent tears slipped down his face. It hurt to breath now and he didn’t know if she would let him live till morning.

“Awe, is my baby crying? Well that’s just not right is it? Let me get those tears for you.”

It was no surprise to Shawn that instead of a loving finger to wipe away the tears, his mother punched him in the face before taking another sip of wine. She lifted the bottle to drink but stopped as she saw Shawn’s arm. His sleeve had made it half way up his arm during the beating and several scars were highly visible.

“What’s this? Did you do this to yourself? Are you really that pathetic that you can’t just kill yourself properly?” Virna laughed and picked up a broken piece of glass. She took her sip of wine and placed the bottle on the floor. She took her free hand and lifted up Shawn’s shirt. The entire front of his body had started bruising. She ignored this and started cutting Shawn’s stomach. Shawn started crying more as his mother sliced into him and he was just thankful that she was too drunk to make the cuts very deep.

“Oh stop bawling.” Virna dropped the glass and picked up her wine. The bottle was half empty. She lifted the bottle and poured some wine into Shawn’s mouth. “That’ll make it better.” Shawn coughed as he choked on the unwanted alcohol.

“You know, you may not be very classy lying on the floor like that, but I’m a classy woman and I deserve a glass for my wine.” She stood up and stumbled back to the cupboard. She pulled out a large wine glass and filled it with the rest of the wine. She walked back to Shawn and sat down on the floor again. She watched her son cry and struggle to breathe against the pain.

“God, I would have left you with them ya know, but you wanted to stay so badly. They deserve better than you. I wouldn’t have had to do this if your father had just done his job of bringing you up right.” Virna scoffed and decided she was tired of hearing his sobs. She took the second bottle and smashed it against Shawn’s head just as she did the last one. Shawn was glad that the bottle brought unconsciousness.

**************

Shawn woke up in a dizzy haze of bright light. He wished the bright light was death, but he’d woken up from enough drunken beatings to know that this was just another spell of pain and confusion. He slowly opened his eyes and saw that his mother was passed out on the couch with an empty wine glass on the floor next to her. The light was still on and he was covered in blood and glass. He needed to sit up but even the thought of moving sent waves of pain over his body. He lay there gathering enough energy to move his head, he knew he had to get up and leave immediately. He looked towards the wall and saw the clock say 2:15. He figured his mom would probably be out for a good 12 hours. He had no idea when he had passed out or how long she had beat him.

He finally forced himself to sit up. He let out a groan as he winced in pain. Luckily it didn’t seem to register with his mother. His mind went fuzzy as he struggled to see through pain-induced fog. The pain was making him sick and he vomited on the floor.

It took him 15 minutes, but he finally was able to stand up. He reached for the phone, but found there was no dial tone. He had no choice, he would have to walk. The closest place was Turner’s apartment. He really wanted to just call, but he knew if he even knocked on another trailer home door, he’d get another beating from the neighbors he woke up.

He limped his way to the door and decided not to even bother with his bag. It only contained some clothes. He didn’t even bring his journal to the trailer home. He didn’t risk his mom finding it and yelling at him for being a pansy with a diary. He finally left the trailer, making sure not to slam the door. He was sure that not even that would wake his mother, but he didn’t want to take that chance. He’d never seen his mother that drunk before. It was always his dad.

He walked slowly, stopping several times just to stand and focus on breathing and cough up blood. If he didn’t, his vision would get blurry from the pain and he wouldn’t be able to move at all. He wanted to sit down, but he didn’t think he’d be able to get back up. He knew he was going on pure adrenaline and the fear that somehow one of his parents would come up behind him and drag him back.

************************

Jon Turner was sleeping when he heard a knock at the door. He wasn’t sure if it was part of his dream or if someone was really at his door. He wasn’t sleeping very well. He’d only finally fell asleep at 1 a.m. He figured Shawn should be alright for the night if he hadn’t called by then.

He turned on the light by his bed and looked at his clock. 3:32 a.m. He scratched his stomach and heard the knock again. He got up and walked out to the door.

He unlocked it and opened the door as Shawn collapsed onto the floor into the apartment.

“SHAWN!!!” Turner kneeled down beside Shawn and made sure he was still breathing. The kid looked like he just walked out of hell. To be fair, he probably did. Jon ran to the phone and called for an ambulance. He went back to Shawn and looked him over. He was covered in bruises and the entire front of his shirt was covered in dried blood. His hair was matted with a mixture of blood and pieces of glass. His nose seemed to be broken and his entire face seemed to be bruised. He tried to wake Shawn as he called the Matthews.

“Hello-” Amy started, groggy from sleep.

“Meet me at the hospital! Shawn…just…get there.” Jon didn’t realize he had started crying until he tried to talk to Amy. He quickly hung up as the paramedics gathered Shawn onto a stretcher and they all left the apartment.

**************

Amy turned on the light in the bedroom and shook Alan awake. “Alan! Wake up!”

“Amy, it’s too early,” Alan said rolling over.

“Shawn’s been taken to the hospital. Go get the boys.” Amy threw on some clothes and went to get Morgan.

Alan moved quickly. He didn’t change out of his sweatpants and t-shirt as he went to the boys room. He opened the door and turned on the light in Cory and Eric’s room. Their clock read 3:45 a.m.

“Dad, what are you doing?” Cory asked as he sat up in his bed. Eric hesitated before sitting up and looking towards his dad, who hadn’t moved from the doorway.

“It’s Shawn, we don’t know why, but he’s in the hospital. Let’s go.”

Cory seemed to go into shock again. He sat, staring at the window that he was so used to Shawn climbing in and out of. Shawn wasn’t back in the hospital. He would come through that window at any moment and tell some crazy story about some trouble he was getting into.

Eric got out of bed and moved over to Cory.

“Cory, come on. It’s gonna be fine,” He placed his hands on Cory’s shoulders and gently shook him. “We need to leave now.”

Cory got up and put his shoes on. He didn’t say anything but he nodded at Eric and all of them made their way to the car. Amy was already there with Morgan sitting in the back seat. She really wished Jon could have given more explanation. No one knew what they were walking into.

*************

Jon sat in the hospital waiting room. Shawn hadn’t woken up in the ambulance and he had no idea what happened. 5 minutes into his wait, all the Matthews walked in. Jon stood up and wiped the tears from his eyes.

Alan held his wife’s hand and looked at Jon. “Jon, what’s going on?”

  
“I don’t really know… He showed up at my door and collapsed without a word. He was beaten within an inch of his life. He’s covered in blood and bruises. I don’t know how he made it to my place, but he hasn’t woken up yet.”

Amy and Cory started crying. Eric grabbed his brother and hugged him tight. Cory hugged back and just sobbed. Alan led Amy to a chair and then turned to Morgan. She looked up at him and wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Is Shawn going to be okay? Was he in a fight?” Alan suddenly realized he couldn’t really keep Morgan in the dark about everything anymore.

“Morgan, honey, we need to go talk about what’s been happening to Shawn.” Alan took her hand and led her to the chair next to Amy. They sat and he started to explain the situation as best he could.

Turner sat back down and put his head in his hands. He didn’t know how to handle this. He just wanted Shawn to wake up.

Eric pulled Cory out of the hug and saw Cory wasn’t crying heavily anymore. He seemed to go back into shock. Eric put him in the chair next to Turner and asked Jon if he called Feeny. When Jon shook his head, Eric walked to the nurses’ station and asked to use the phone. He called Feeny and told him the situation. He said Feeny didn’t need to come down and they would call as soon as they knew anything. School was starting tomorrow and Feeny needed to be there early for teacher’s meetings and new students.

15 minutes later, Feeny walked into the hospital anyway. He looked at this makeshift family for Shawn and realized he didn’t have any advice for them. The whole family always came to him for all the advice he could possibly offer, but he didn’t even know how to say hello in a situation like this.

Jon looked up and gave a sad smile as he saw George enter. “We still don’t know anything.” He said clearing his throat.

“It’s going to be alright Jon. Shawn will pull through this. He always does.” George said trying to believe it himself.

They all sat in silence for the next 20 minutes. Finally a doctor walked out of the ER and made his way towards Jon.

“Mr. Turner? I’m Dr. Sullivan,” The doctor said, looking at his clipboard.

“Yeah… yeah, how’s Shawn?” Jon asked getting up.

“He has 5 broken ribs, several lacerations across his stomach, a broken nose, some internal bleeding, a lot of bruising, and a concussion that placed him into a coma. We’re doing all we can and hopefully he will wake up soon. We are keeping him in the ER until we can make sure the internal bleeding has stopped. Then we’ll move him to a private room and you can see him.”

Jon rubbed his eyes and had the great desire to punch something. He breathed in thanked the doctor.

Dr. Sullivan nodded and walked back to the ER. Turner sat down and waited with the rest of the group.

They had all heard what the doctor said and Cory got up as Turner sat down. He walked off without a word to anyone, but Amy tapped Eric’s shoulder and told him to follow his brother. Eric got up and ran to catch up with Cory. They ended up in the bathroom. Cory went into the stall and threw up everything he had eaten the day before. Eric stood outside the stall and stared at the floor. He couldn’t imagine being as hurt as Shawn currently was.

Once Cory was done being sick, he walked out and splashed his face with water and rinsed his mouth out. He didn’t say anything as he and Eric walked back to the waiting room.

Everyone sat quietly, saying their own prayers. At 5 a.m. Dr. Sullivan made another appearance.

“Jon? We’ve moved Shawn to room 204. He hasn’t woken up, but he is stable. You may all go see him, but we ask that only a couple go in at a time. As is the requirements for cases of this nature, there are officers on their way to investigate what happened to Shawn. They will want to speak with you when they arrive.”

Turner nodded and turned to the group. They all got up and made their way towards Shawn’s room. Jon went in first and looked at Shawn. He was so small on the hospital bed. His injuries looked so raw under the bright hospital lights. The quiet, steady beeping was the only thing that let Jon know Shawn was still alive. He walked over and pulled up a chair next to Shawn’s bed.

“Shawn…you gotta wake up Shawn. Things are supposed to be getting better and you can’t just let your parents win on this one. I’m the one who takes care of you now…I shouldn’t have left you… It’s my fault buddy, and I will never stop making it up to you.”

Cory opened the door and stared at his best friend. Without breaking his stare at Shawn, Cory spoke to Turner, “Uh, the cops need to talk to you…”

Jon got up and left the room, patting Cory on the shoulder as he passed. Once Turner had left, Cory began to cry again. He went and sat in the chair Turner was in and took Shawn’s hand. He couldn’t decide which was worse: seeing his best friend near death because of himself or because of his parents.

“Shawn, you’re not allowed to do this to me anymore. This is twice in one year that I’ve seen you dying in this hospital. I can’t keep doing this. You have to survive. This has been the worst year of my life, but if you die, I will never forgive you-”

Mr. Feeny and the rest of the Matthews family walked into the room. Rules be damned, they were going to be there for their family members. Jon walked in a couple minutes after.

“The cops will be around, but no one will know anything until Shawn wakes up. I told them he was last with his mother. They’re going to talk with her now.”

Everyone sat in that tiny room, just waiting for Shawn to wake up. Morgan fell back asleep at around 6 a.m. and Mr. Feeny reluctantly had to go to school and start the new school year. He would call a substitute for Turner and inform Cory, Shawn, and Eric’s teachers that they would not be attending classes today.

Cory thought about calling Topanga, but he didn’t want to leave the room.

“Eric?” Cory finally asked, “Could you call Topanga and let her know we’re here.”

Eric looked over from Shawn to Cory, “Yeah, I’ll let her know.” He turned to his mom, “Do you want me to take Morgan home? There’s not much we can do here, but she’s too tired for school.”

Amy looked at her daughter and nodded. “Just stay home with her.”

Eric woke up Morgan and they left the room. It was going to be a while until Shawn woke up.

******************

It was Tuesday night when Shawn finally opened his eyes. He woke up at around 8 that evening. It had been nearly 40 hours since Shawn collapsed on Turner’s floor and everyone grew more worried each hour he was out. Turner was the first to see the Shawn had woken up. He jolted upright in his chair and it broke the silence in the room.

“Jon?” Shawn’s voice was raspy and broken. His throat burned as he swallowed.

Cory pressed the button for a nurse and stood up next to Shawn’s bed.

“Shawn! You’re back!” Cory began to cry as he realized his best friend was going to live.

The nurse ran into the room with Dr. Sullivan right behind her. Shawn was high priority and the fact that he was awake meant they had work to do to make sure he didn’t have permanent damage from the coma.

Cory moved out of the way and let the professionals do their jobs. He watched as they pressed buttons, gave him water, asked him simple questions, and adjusted IV medications. When they finally finished, they said they would return in a couple hours and Shawn would be okay.

Shawn looked around the room. He had no idea how he got there, but he knew he was in the hospital. Jon watched Shawn take in his surroundings. “Shawn, do you know what happened?”

Shawn turned his head and looked at Jon. He winced in pain as he felt the stiffness of his entire body. The doctor gave him some pretty heavy drugs that blocked out the worst of the pain, but he could still feel the heaviness of his body. “Yeah, but the last thing I remember is standing on the side of the road. I was walking to your house. Did I actually make it to your place?”

Jon looked shocked. Shawn had walked from the trailer park to the apartment in that condition? No wonder he was in a coma. “Yeah, you sure as hell did. But…Shawn, why didn’t you tell us your mom was just as bad as your dad?”

Shawn blinked slowly. “I didn’t know… she’d never done that before. She always left it to dad to dole out punishment. She usually just sat back and told me how worthless I was and made sure to point out all my faults.”

Alan walked over towards Shawn, “That’s still major abuse Shawn, we never would have left you there if we knew it was that bad. We are so sorry we didn’t protect you from this.”

“It’s not your fault guys, I…I should have told you…or ran after she started drinking…don’t worry about it.”

Amy opened the hospital room door when she heard a knock. The doctor had informed the police that Shawn was awake and coherent enough and that they should speak with Shawn and the family.

As the police entered the room, Cory sat down and tried to process what was happening. _Shawn just woke up from a coma that his mother beat him into and he was still blaming himself_. He couldn’t stand it anymore. “Shut up Shawn. You know whose fault it is? … Your mother’s. You didn’t need to do anything differently; she’s the one that fucked up here. You can’t blame yourself for the fact that she can’t understand that it isn’t okay to hit her kid.”

Amy put her hand on Cory’s shoulder. “It’s alright Cor.”

Shawn started crying, he saw there were cops in his room now, but he didn’t care. “I… I know you’re right Cor. I really do, it’s just, she drank so much…then she was telling me how much you all didn’t want me and how I was screwing up all your lives. And I started to believe her. But then…I tried to tell her it wasn’t true. You guys take care of me and don’t mind that I’m a screw-up…and that just made her angrier. She broke the first bottle of wine over my head and I don’t remember hearing her talk for a while. Then she was kicking me and yelling about how worthless I am. When I cried in pain because I was pretty sure my ribs were broken, she punched me in the face. I tried not to cry, I really knew that it would only piss her off, but it hurt to breathe and I didn’t realize I’d started to cry.” Shawn looked at Jon and saw he was crying now too. He hated seeing adults cry, it always made him feel like he was breaking the rules of the world.

Amy rested her hand on Shawn’s leg, “Shawn, you need to keep going. I know it’s hard, but we need to know. The police are here to get your story and help you.”

Shawn looked at the policemen and they nodded. “I’m officer Elridge and this is officer Brant. Just talk when you’re ready.”

Shawn looked at his arms. “I don’t know how long she was hitting me. She had already started her second bottle of wine when she saw the scars on one of my arms. She found if funny that I would do that to myself. So she took the broken glass from the first bottle and just started cutting me. When I kept crying she yelled and started pouring her wine down my throat. When I started choking on it, she was upset or something because the next thing I heard was the second bottle smash against my head. I don’t know when everything had stopped. I just know I woke up around 2 or something and she was passed out on the couch. When I tried to use the phone, it wasn’t working, so… I just left. I kept walking, but it hurt… so much. I just wanted to go to sleep so much. That’s… all I remember.”

Everyone but the officers was crying. No one said anything because no one knew what to say. Against all logic, Shawn was alive when he never should have woken up from that trailer home floor in the first place.

“Shawn,” Office Elridge began, “We went to find your mother yesterday morning and she was gone. She took the trailer and we have no idea where she went. We put the word out and there will be an issue for her arrest, but we’re not sure when, or if we’ll find her.”

He knew she wouldn’t be coming back. He nodded and looked up at Mr. Turner.

Officer Brant noticed Shawn’s attention move to Jon, “Mr. Turner is still your legal guardian and therefore, you’ll stay with him. There is no need for the state to be involved in the matter of custody. Just recover and we’ll be in touch if things change.”

The adults thanked the officers and watched as they left the room. Amy and Alan looked at Shawn and sighed. “You know what, I’m gonna go make some calls and let people know you’re alright.” Amy said with a small smile. She took Alan’s hand and they walked out of the room to give Jon and the boys some privacy.


	12. Chapter 12

Shawn started his junior year a week and a half after everyone else. The doctor wanted him to stay in the hospital so they could monitor his brain activity and make sure his ribs were healing properly. His therapist also saw him every day while he was in the hospital. Shawn wasn’t really interested in talking to his therapist. He was tired of having to talk about all the shit going on in his head. He knew he was a mess but he also knew no one could fix him. He was so broken inside and out and nothing was going to change that. So he mainly told his therapist what she wanted to hear and let the painkillers knock him out at night.

When he finally got back to school, things seemed to be going well. His teachers didn’t bother him like they used to in the past. Even Feeny was slightly more lenient. Not too much, he wouldn’t be Feeny if he just let Shawn off the hook on assignments, but he didn’t seem to care when Shawn fell asleep in class or came in late. Cory and Topanga were just as good of friends to him as they ever were, and the girls still couldn’t leave Shawn alone. He even hooked up with a couple of the girls who left him notes at the end of the last school year, sticking to his 2 week rule.

Mainly Shawn got through his days with a handful of pain killers. It wasn’t until about a month into school that Shawn had to face reality. He was slowly being cut off from the pain killers by his doctor and he realized how much they were actually affecting him. He loved being drugged up, and when he was completely off the pills, he didn’t know how to function. The pills had taken the edge off and made him numb. They had replaced the cutting.

He woke up around the first of October and knew he was fucked. He couldn’t be a drug addict, he was too poor. He ran his fingers over his scars and sighed. He was supposed to be at school in half an hour. Jon would have left for school at 7 that morning. Shawn rolled over in bed and decided he wasn’t going to school. His education didn’t really matter anyway; he wasn’t going to be able to get into college. He thought about calling Cory, but didn’t know what to say. Any excuse he gave would bring the kid to the apartment immediately thinking Shawn was going to kill himself.

It was noon when Shawn woke up again. There was a banging on the front door and Shawn knew Cory was on the other side. But for some reason, Shawn panicked. He walked out of his room and stared at the front door. He couldn’t figure out why, but he didn’t want to open it.

“Shawn! Open up! It’s Cory.”

Shawn breathed a sigh of relief and willed his legs to move forward. He closed his eyes and shook his head as he went to unlock the door.

Cory looked at Shawn and walked into the apartment.

“Shawn, why aren’t you at school?” Cory asked dropping his bag near the doorway.

“I don’t know, just didn’t feel like going.”

Cory sighed and went over to the couch, “Really wish you would have called or something. Turner was freaking out when you didn’t answer the phone. He tried calling after homeroom.”

“I was just sleeping man, don’t worry about it.” Shawn walked over to the kitchen and grabbed some cereal. Cory watched Shawn and was concerned that Shawn was finally reacting to his life. He had seemed too well adjusted ever since the incident with his mom, almost as if it didn’t happen, but Cory couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.

Cory went back to school after his lunch period was over and Shawn went back to bed. There was no purpose in him being awake.

It wasn’t until 2 that afternoon that Shawn realized why he should be awake. He woke up in a cold sweat. He had started having nightmares again.

He hadn’t had nightmares since he’d gotten out of the hospital after his suicide attempt, he’d surprisingly been able to sleep pretty well, he wondered if he could ever sleep well again.

****************

Shawn suffered through the next several months with very little sleep. He kept his journal with him all the time and his poems and thoughts began to get darker and darker again. Even having sex with the girls that fawned over him didn’t give him any satisfaction. He knew he should be seeing his therapist and talking to her about all of this, but he had stopped seeing her in November and didn’t want to bother anyone about his own problems. Especially now that Cory was going through his own issue, mainly Topanga had to move.

Shawn really tried to be there for his friends, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to deal with the change. He missed having Topanga around and Cory was a mess without her. Shawn didn’t think she would really leave. It was February and it had been 2 weeks since she left He missed her being around and always knowing what to say. She used to be horrible at it. He thought back to when she didn’t understand why he loved Little Cory so much, but ever since he got out of the hospital almost a year ago, she has been one of the best at knowing when he needed to talk about something, coming in second only to Cory.

He also missed Cory. He was around still, but without Topanga, Cory didn’t want to do anything. He was completely focused on the fact that Topanga wasn’t with him. Shawn kept trying to keep things fun and be there for Cory like Cory’s always been there for him, but he just couldn’t get Cory to cheer up. Shawn would get dates for both of them, but Cory was never happy without Topanga. He felt useless and went to the store to buy a razor.

He didn’t care anymore. He wasn’t going to kill himself. It hadn’t even been a year since the last time he tried, and he didn’t want to fail again. But he needed something to take the edge off. His nerves were shot to hell ever since the nightmares had started a couple months before and he just didn’t care about fighting anymore. Sure, he knew people would be disappointed in him that he failed to recover, but honestly, he’d like to see them feel like he did every day and not want to kill themselves too. In reality, he wouldn’t wish these feelings on anyone. He hated being scared of himself. In fact he was terrified of being alone with himself. He was never sure when his thoughts would lead back to telling him to kill himself. So he bought a razor and went home to his room. Shawn made several cuts and slept soundly for the first time in months.


	13. Chapter 13

Topanga had come back to Philly by the middle of March. Everything was going well now that she was back, but Shawn had started cutting regularly again; just once every night to get him to sleep. If he tried to skip a night, he’d wake up crying and be a wreck for the rest of the day.

His problem was that he was always on edge. No one knew where Shawn’s parents were, and either one of them could come back any moment and decide they need a punching bag. He tried to never go out alone at night anymore, he refused to go anywhere near the trailer park, and just the smell of spaghetti made him sick.

No one seemed to notice anything until school was out for summer vacation. Eric and Cory went on a road trip and Topanga went to summer camp. Shawn was left alone and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He started doing odd jobs around the area just trying to pick up some cash. He was as close to normal as he was going to get.

One day at the end of July, everything changed. Jon had left for a week to visit his parents in California and Shawn was allowed to stay on his own in the apartment as long as he checked in with the Matthews once a day. Shawn spent his week hooking up with any girl that gave him a call and didn’t go to his school. Most of the girls would stare at his scars, but he was talented enough to get their minds focused on other parts of his body.

It was Friday afternoon and Jon was due back on Sunday. Shawn had just showered and called the Matthews to let them know he was still alive. No one was home, so he left a message and hung up. He felt like crap. He hated that he couldn’t get close to any of the girls he brought home. He could be as physical as he wanted with them, but he could never let them know who he really was. He threw on a t-shirt and boxers. He was going to spend the day watching TV to forget about the real world then probably go to sleep early.

************

It was nearing 9 pm that evening when Jon entered the apartment. He was anxious about the bad news he had to give Shawn and had come home a couple days early. He noticed the apartment was quiet except for a dim light from Shawn’s room. He dropped his bag on the couch and walked over to Shawn’s door.

“Shawn? Can I come in?” He asked as he knocked on the door.

There was no answer and Jon heard no other sound from the other side. Carefully he opened the door and looked to see Shawn sleeping in his bed, his arm covered in freshly scabbed over cuts. Jon sighed and leaned against the doorway. This could not have come at a worse time. He turned off Shawn’s light and closed the door. He would deal with everything in the morning. He just needed to sleep.

*************

The next morning Jon woke up at 9. He showered and ate breakfast and thought about what he was going to do about Shawn. He first decided he should probably call the Matthews and see if they knew anything. He also needed to talk to them anyway about the major changes that he was going to have to put Shawn through.

It was around 10:30 when Shawn finally woke up and walked out into the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks when he saw someone had been in the apartment. Shawn was unaware Jon was in his room on the phone with Amy and Allan; he began to panic. He felt that he was coming out of his own body. The entire apartment seemed like a place he’d never been in before. He didn’t seem to recognize his surroundings or his own being. He started unconsciously scratching his cuts as he sat down between the fridge and the kitchen counter.

Jon walked out of his bedroom after finishing his call to the Matthews. He didn’t see Shawn right away. He just heard small whimpers and uneven breathing coming from the kitchen. He walked over and saw Shawn’s arm and hand glistening red with blood. Shawn was crying and leaning against the kitchen counter. Jon had no idea what was going on but it seemed Shawn was having a panic attack. He crouched down next to Shawn and tried to get his attention.

“Shawn? Shawn…it’s just me… It’s Jon. What’s going on?”

Shawn didn’t say anything. He looked up at Jon and there was recognition in his eyes.

Jon slowly reached for Shawn’s hand to stop him from scratching and causing more damage. “What happened Shawn? What’s wrong?”

“I… why are you here?” Shawn couldn’t understand what Jon was doing home.

“I came back early,” Jon started to explain. “That’s not important. What is happening with you?”

Shawn didn’t know how to explain himself. “You… I didn’t know it was you… I thought mom…dad… came back again…”

Jon sighed and took Shawn into his arms. He hugged Shawn and let him cry.

Once Shawn had calmed down, Jon led him to the couch. As Shawn sat down Jon went and got the first aid kit to clean up Shawn’s arm.

“Talk to me Shawn. When did you start hurting yourself again?” Jon asked, cleaning Shawn’s wounds.

Shawn calmly watched Jon wipe the blood off his arm. “I think…February…”

Jon stopped cleaning and stared at Shawn. “February! Why didn’t you talk to anyone? This is insane Shawn! You can’t be doing this again…”

Shawn flinched as Jon’s voice rose. He wasn’t yelling, but he was getting angry and Shawn didn’t like it.

“Look, I’m sorry I left you this week, but it was important. I actually have bad news, and I know this isn’t the best time, but we need to deal with it immediately. I talked to the Matthews already, but now that I know you’re doing this again, we may need to rethink the plan…” Jon was basically thinking out loud. He didn’t know how to say anything.

“What are you talking about Jon,” Shawn asked, getting anxious.

“Shawn… I have to move out west.”

Shawn’s brain stopped. He knew Jon would leave him eventually. He hated himself for thinking Jon would want him around forever.

Jon wanted to explain everything at once. “Shawn, I have to go take care of my parents, and I got a really good job offer out there. I want you to come with, but I can’t ask you to leave right before your senior year. I am leaving in a couple weeks; it’s completely up to you if you want to come with.”

“I… what? I can’t…” Shawn couldn’t process all that was happening.

“I understand Shawn. The Matthews said you can live with them and we can transfer custody… But Shawn, I don’t want to lose you. I want you to call and visit and keep me updated. I will be back to see you graduate and help you get to college. I’m not leaving you Shawn.”

Shawn nodded and pulled his arm to his chest.

Jon could see Shawn was shutting down. “Shawn, I think you might need to stay in the hospital for a bit…”

“It’s not that deep, I’m not dying.” Shawn replied hastily.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jon didn’t want to push Shawn, but obviously Shawn wasn’t getting better like he had led everyone to believe. “You’re not doing well and I don’t know how to help you if you won’t let anyone in.”

Shawn shook his head and leaned against the couch. “No one can help me Jon. I’m too messed up. I tried, I really did. But the nightmares came back and…they could be anywhere. Mom and dad…they could come back…I’ll never be safe Jon…”

Jon looked at the boy he had grown to think of as a son and he started to cry. He grabbed Shawn and hugged him again.  “You are safe Shawn. You are going to be okay and you are going to get better. It won’t always be like this.”

Shawn choked back a sob, “I can’t go back to the hospital Jon. Don’t put me in there…”

Jon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He pulled Shawn away from the hug and looked at him. “I’ll tell you what; I’m going to stay until you start your senior year and get you set up at the Matthews’. But for the next month we’re going to have to talk. You can’t keep hiding yourself away. ”

Shawn nodded and knew that Jon was right. He needed to finally let Jon in.

Both were exhausted and it was only noon. Jon told Shawn to go get cleaned up and he would make lunch. As Jon made lunch, he called the Matthews and his own parents to explain the situation.

After a quiet lunch, Jon sat with Shawn on the couch and waited for the young man to be ready to talk.

Five minutes of comfortable silence let Shawn gather his thoughts. He figured he should start from the beginning.

“You know how I was on all those pain killers last year?” Shawn asked. He waited for a nod from Jon before he continued. “I really liked them. I was fine until I came off of them. It was like… they took the edge off, ya know? Like, I knew what my mom had done to me, and I hated myself, but I didn’t care that I hated myself. But then when I didn’t have them anymore, the nightmares came back… I always had nightmares growing up, but I hadn’t had any since I left the hospital the…first time…” Shawn never liked to reference his own suicide attempt. He hated to remind people of the pain he put them through and he hated to remind himself of his own failure.

“I barely slept. And then when Topanga left and I couldn’t help Cory get through it, I just was too tired to care about fighting anymore. When I started cutting again, it let me sleep at night. It also let me get through the day without a panic attack that my mom or dad would show up at any moment and kill me…”

Jon noticed Shawn started crying and he hugged the boy again. Through his tears, Shawn kept talking quietly, “I’m just scared…all the time… I just want it to be over…” Realizing he just admitted out loud that he wanted to die, Shawn closed his eyes and cried harder. Jon simply hugged Shawn tightly and whispered over and over, “It’s alright, you’re going to be fine,” until Shawn cried himself to sleep.

*************

The rest of the summer was filled with meaningful talks and tearful confessions. Sometimes they both went over to the Matthews and Shawn confided in Amy and Alan as well. Shawn was feeling better, but he wasn’t being fixed. He still hated almost everything about himself and he still was scared of just about everything. A real benefit he noticed was that his nightmares seemed to lessen. Alan bought Shawn some books on tape to help him sleep, remembering how reading to Shawn had helped in the hospital.

The end of the summer came too soon for everyone. Eric and Cory arrived back from their trip and Topanga returned from summer camp. The going away party was underway and Jon was leaving the next morning. School was going to start the next week. After tearful goodbyes and goodlucks, everyone left the party at Turner’s apartment and let Shawn and Turner have one more night in the apartment that been Shawn’s safe haven for so many years now.

There was nothing really left in the apartment. Shawn had already moved his stuff to the Matthews and Turner’s things were packed and in the car. Some of the main furnishings were staying in the apartment, but the things that made the place a home were gone.

As Shawn and Jon cleaned up from the party, they both tried to ignore the fact that they weren’t going to be a tiny little family anymore. Shawn had never really thought much about it, but he really had grown to see Jon as his father- a proper father. Jon saved him from himself on so many accounts and now it was time for Jon to actually go and build his own, real family. They finished cleaning and Shawn sat on the couch. He turned on the TV and decided he wanted to pretend everything was the same and it was just a normal Sunday night, sitting on the couch, watching bad TV together. So that’s what they did, they fell asleep on the couch and forgot that their lives were changing.

Jon’s alarm went off at 8 a.m. waking both him and Shawn up to the reality of what was happening this morning. They ate the leftover pizza from the party and then got ready for the day. After packing the last of Jon’s things into the car, it was time to say goodbye. Cory was set to come pick Shawn up at 9:30 so that he didn’t have to be alone after Turner left. Cory would be there in a couple minutes.

Jon leaned against the side of the car and looked at Shawn. “Shawn, this isn’t the last time I’m gonna see you. I’ll be back to see you graduate, and if you ever need, I can come back for a weekend or you can just call and talk. I am always going to be there for you.”

Shawn stared at the curb and nodded. “I… I know Jon, it’s just, you’ve done so much for me, and we both know I wouldn’t be alive if you weren’t here for me. All I’ve done is make your life more complicated and I don’t know how to repay you…”

Jon placed his hands on Shawn’s shoulders. “You have made my life more _meaningful_ Shawn. You’re a son to me and you can repay me by living the rest of your life in happiness. But you don’t owe me anything.”

Cory pulled up to the curb, parking his car several feet away from Jon and Shawn. He wanted them to know he was there, but didn’t want to intrude. He had said his goodbye to Turner at the party last night and he wasn’t going to interrupt them.

Turner saw Cory park the car and he gave a nod of acknowledgement before turning back to Shawn. “Well, it looks like it’s time to be going.”

Shawn glanced at Cory in the car and then looked at Jon. “Yeah, uh, I guess this is it… Thanks for everything Turner.” He grabbed Jon and hugged him.

“Anytime Hunter, anytime,” Jon said hugging Shawn back tightly.

Shawn watched as Mr. Turner got into the car and pulled out into the street. His eyes followed Jon’s car until he couldn’t see it at all and he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Cory looked up at the apartment building and then stared down the street where Mr. Turner left from, “Let’s go home Shawn.”


	14. Chapter 14

Shawn walked into Chubbie’s to meet Cory after their first day of senior year. He looked around and saw Topanga standing near their usual booth but froze when he saw the impossible. How on earth was it possible that Cory was talking to Shawn’s brother?

“What are you doing here?” Shawn asked, approaching Cory and Jack.

Cory started to object, he really wanted this guy to room with Eric.

“He’s my brother,” Shawn stated flatly.

Cory was shocked and Shawn continued, “Same dad, different moms. His mom bailed on my dad years ago, found a guy with some money and took off.”

Jack looked at Shawn, “Look, that’s not what happened, I think we need to talk.”

Shawn really wanted to see his blood running down his arm. Here was his own brother, the one who never came to save him from the nightly beatings and now he wanted to talk? “You bailed on me... There, we talked.”

Shawn walked out of Chubbie’s and didn’t know what to do. Normally, he would cut himself. It’d been a week since Turner left and a month since he last cut. He knew he was supposed to get better, not go back to hurting himself. He thought of calling Turner, but he didn’t want to bother him in his new life, so he just walked back to the Matthews’. _Maybe Mr. Matthews would be around to talk to._

Shawn walked into the kitchen and saw Alan sitting at the table looking over some finances. Alan looked up as Shawn walked in and saw a slight look of distress. He had watched the boy grow up and had seen Shawn go through so much; he was good at reading Shawn’s emotions by now.

He closed the checkbook he was balancing, “What’s going on Shawn?”

“Uh, I just, I…don’t know what…” Shawn closed the door carefully and stared at the door handle.

Alan got up from the table and walked over to Shawn. He led Shawn to the table and had him sit down. “Alright, just think through it,” he said taking his own seat.

“My…brother. My brother is here.” Shawn could barely believe that he was saying those words, in that order, together.

Alan tried to hide his look of surprise. “I didn’t know you had a brother Shawn. Is it good that your brother is here?”

“I don’t know.” Shawn played with the end of the placemat in front of him and thought about what it meant that his brother was back.

Alan looked from Shawn towards the kitchen door as it opened again. Cory entered the house with a guy that looked so much like Shawn it was uncanny.

Shawn turned around in his chair and sighed as he saw Cory and Jack standing behind him. _Why must Cory be so stupid sometimes? Why would he bring Jack here?_

“I don’t want to talk to you Jack.” Shawn said, trying not to raise his voice.

“I came here to see you. I go to Penn State now and I thought it would be good for us to get to know each other.”

“You have no idea what’s good for me.” Shawn clenched his hand into a fist almost hoping to release his anger through his hand.

Jack took a step forward and Alan stood up to stop him. “Hi, Alan Matthews. You must be Jack.”

Jack took a moment to shift gears. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, I’m Jack Hunter, Shawn’s older brother.”

“Well look Jack, I think that right now it might be best if you let us talk for a bit. If Shawn wants to talk with you, he can get in touch.” Alan was not going to let another one of Shawn’s family members hurt him.

“I’m sorry Mr. Matthews. I’ll give you guys some time. I just thought I’d mention I came by so I could get to know him- be a brother, ya know? I have an apartment near the college and need roommates, so if he’s interested, I really want him there. Just give me a call if you change your mind Shawn.” Jack nodded towards Cory and left.

Alan turned to Cory, “We’ll deal with you later.” He went and sat back down with Shawn at the table. “Shawn, what’s going through your head about all this?”

Shawn unconsciously ran his hand over his scars. He usually never realized that he did this when he was thinking about cutting. It was extremely helpful to the Matthews though. It helped them know what mindset Shawn was in.

Alan tried again to get Shawn out of his own head, “Shawn? You gotta talk to me…”

“Sorry Mr. Matthews. I… I don’t really know what I’m thinking. I mean, I don’t even know him, but he left back then ya know, and now he just wants to come and make up for all of that by playing house together…”

“Shawn, his mother left and took him with her. He didn’t have any more of a choice in the matter than you did in being stuck with your parents. It seems he’s here to make up for something he didn’t have any control over.” Cory said, walking over towards the table.

“Cor- you don’t know him any better than I do. He didn’t care about me or what our dad was really like, so I don’t think he gets to just pretend everything is okay.”

“What if you just sat down with him for a bit and talked?” Alan suggested. “I’m not saying you have to move in with him or that you even have to like him, but keeping all this negativity inside of you isn’t going to help.”

Shawn sighed. Once again, Mr. Matthews knew how to solve a problem. “I guess you’re right.” He didn’t want to have to explain to them about the letters he wrote as a kid. He knew his brother didn’t really care, but Shawn was sick of talking.

**************

The next day Shawn, Eric, Cory, and Alan went over to Jack’s apartment. Cory wanted Eric to live with Jack and Eric did need a place to live. Alan was going so that he could be there for Shawn. When they arrived, the Matthews went to see the bedrooms in the apartment and left Shawn and Jack to talk in the living room.

In the end, Shawn decided he would move in. Eric was moving in as well, so Shawn did feel slightly safer about the whole situation. Alan told Shawn there is always a place in their home, and if it doesn’t work out or Shawn doesn’t feel safe, he can move back home.

************

Senior year seemed to be going well for everyone, Shawn finally got rid of his 2 week rule and had started dating Angela. He really liked her. He and Jack seemed to be getting along, and he even had a couple more friends to just hang out with when Cory and Topanga were busy. But then November rolled around and two things made life more difficult for Shawn. Firstly, Cory and Topanga broke up. Second, Jack started asking about their father.

Cory and Topanga were broken up and Cory was miserable. He was impossible to be around and inconsolable.

Jack also became impossible to be around. At least every other day Jack would somehow ask about where their father was or what he was like. Shawn hadn’t thought about what he would actually tell Jack. He usually went with the explanation tht he had no idea where their dad was, he just took off years ago and never came back. This seemed to satisfy Jack for a couple days, but then he wanted to know what it was like to grow up with Chett.

“Horrible. He was a shitty dad and you were better off,” was all Shawn could think to tell him. Shawn wasn’t ready to talk about his past with a guy he just met a couple months ago.

Shawn was really on edge again. The stability that he was depending on was fraying and he didn’t want to relapse into his depression and self-destruction. He was so thankful that Mr. Turner finally called a few weeks before Thanksgiving. He had wanted to call Turner, but he knew Jon deserved to build his own life free of Shawn’s problems.

“Shawn, how’s everything?” Jon asked, hoping Shawn was still doing well.

Jon sounded happy and hopeful. Shawn didn’t want to bring Jon down, but he didn’t want to lie. Jon deserved better than to be lied to by someone he sacrificed so much for.

“It’s good to hear from you Jon! I was thinking about calling you. I’ve been okay, but things here are kind of different lately…”

Their conversation lasted a while as Shawn told Jon about his brother and the stress it was placing on him. Jon was as helpful as he always was and told Shawn to share only as much as he was comfortable sharing. Shawn didn’t owe Jack anything and Jack would have to wait until Shawn was ready to talk about Chett.

Shawn promised to call soon and when he hung up, he regretted not calling Jon earlier. Shawn decided that he didn’t want to talk to Jack yet. He didn’t trust Jack would care and understand and he didn’t want to have to think about his father and his beatings again. Besides, he had a party to get ready for.

************

Cory was the life of the party that night. No one knew why, but Shawn found out that Cory was drunk. When Cory offered Shawn a drink at the party, Shawn really wasn’t going to have any. His only experiences with alcohol were that of drunken parents and choking on wine that was shoved down his throat. But something about drinking with Cory and being as carefree as Cory seemed to be, made Shawn decide to try it.

They had a great night getting completely smashed, right up until they got caught.

************

Cory had decided they wouldn’t be drinking anymore after they were arrested then taken home by Alan. What Shawn didn’t mention to anyone was how much he loved being drunk. He started drinking himself to sleep every night. It numbed him better than the cutting ever did, but he started cutting again because when he was drunk he didn’t care about fighting against his desire to cut himself. It helped even more that when he was drunk, his cuts would bleed more.

A couple weeks after his first drink, Shawn started drinking during the day. He would wake up and start his day with a beer. By the time he would get to Feeny’s history class, he’d be wasted enough to not care about what was happening around him.

He found it amusing that no one even suspected he was always drunk. He couldn’t really remember the last time he did anything sober. It wasn’t until he yelled at Feeny in class that his cover was blown. He left class and walked back to his apartment. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and took a swig. He was surprised when he turned around and Cory and Jack were staring at him.

“Shawn? What are you doing?” Cory asked, dropping his bag on the floor.

“Having a beer. Want one?” Shawn offered him the beer in his hand and smiled.

“No Shawn, I don’t. Why do you?” Cory was confused. He had no idea why Shawn would be drinking.

Jack took a step towards his brother. “Are you drunk Shawn?”

Shawn smiled. “Of course I am. I think… I’ve been drunk… all month.”

Cory’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe that Shawn never stopped drinking. Jack sighed and rubbed his face with his palm. “Shawn you can’t be drinking.”

“I don’t see why not, I like it. I like the way it makes me feel.” Shawn looked at Cory, “I’ve always felt like some part of me was missing Cor…. And everyone could somehow see that I’m not complete. It’s why I started all that shit years ago, but drinking helps so much. Don’t you get it?”

Cory stared at Shawn and everything finally clicked. “I get it Shawn. I get that you are more alone than I ever knew.”

Shawn scoffed and took a drink from his beer. “Well I don’t do alone real good.”

Cory went up to Shawn and took the bottle from his hand. “Jack’s right Shawn, you can’t be drinking.”

Shawn looked offended and shoved Cory. “And yet, no one explains why.”

Cory was finally fed up with Shawn’s attitude, “BECAUSE BEATING PEOPLE WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK RUNS IN YOUR FAMILY!” Cory didn’t know how else to get through to Shawn and he was so angry that Shawn would be drinking after all he’d been through with alcohol.

Jack stared at Shawn. He was speechless. He knew his father was an angry drunk, but he never knew the extent of the problem. “Shawn, alcoholism runs in the family. We can’t drink like other people.”

Shawn wanted to cry. _How could he have been so stupid? He should have known better. He knew more than anyone how his parents were when they were drunk._ And now Jack knew about his father.

Jack watched Shawn fight back tears. “How come you didn’t tell me Shawn? You didn’t need to start drinking…”

“Because you never cared! I wrote you letters for three years Jack! I found out I had a brother when I was 10 and thought you might want to know me... and if you were able to get away from dad, maybe I could too. But you never replied… Not once. Then when I stopped writing I thought you might think dad finally killed me, but I guess you didn’t even care.”

Shawn finally started crying. He scratched his arms. It didn’t do much for him seeing as he was scratching over his long sleeve shirt. “But I don’t blame you, why would you care about me? You were better off.”

Jack stared at his brother, “Shawn, I never got any letters…”

Shawn stopped scratching and sat down on the couch. Jack continued, “My mom must have thrown them away before I got them. I… I never knew…”

Shawn really wished Cory hadn’t taken his beer.

Cory sat down next to Shawn and rubbed circles on Shawn’s back. Jack watched Cory comfort Shawn and he sat down on the other side of Shawn.

“But Shawn, you have to stop drinking, it’s not going to help fix things. We’re going to take care of this. I don’t know all you’ve been through, but I want to hear as much as you are willing to tell.”

 *************

Jack and Shawn spent winter break talking with doctors about how to deal with having alcoholism run in the family. They were taught how to be around alcohol and whether or not they could ever drink socially. Shawn began to see another therapist to deal with his drinking problem and his cutting. No one knew that he had started that up again. They didn’t quite understand how it was an addiction just as much as the alcohol was. He did tell his therapist and slowly started to recover. He didn’t cut as often and he stopped drinking completely.

Christmas came and went and was a really lovely time. Cory and Topanga got back together in time for the holidays which meant that everything was going to be okay. At the start of the New Year, Mr. Turner came for a visit. Shawn was ecstatic to get to hang out with Jon again. He didn’t realize how much he missed having Turner around. Sure he was a father figure, but he didn’t ever treat Shawn like a kid. He never tried to curb Shawn’s rebellious nature because Jon had the same personality. He only ever wanted what was best for Shawn. Jon spent the first weekend of the New Year with Shawn and the Matthews. He caught up with Feeny as well, but really wanted to focus on knowing what was going on with Shawn. The Matthews had called a couple times to keep him updated when Shawn didn’t, but Jon wanted the whole story from Shawn. They sat in the living room of Shawn’s apartment and Jon finally asked how Shawn was really doing. He could tell that something was bothering the kid.

“I’m in therapy again Jon.” Shawn said hesitantly.

“That’s a good thing Shawn. What’s been going on?” Jon only knew that Shawn had been drinking, but didn’t know anything else.

Shawn explained everything that had happened and even mentioned how he was cutting. He hadn’t done it since the end of December and was determined to start the year clean.

Jon was proud that Shawn made it through another serious addiction but he could tell that something was still bothering Shawn. He figured he should just ask.

Shawn knew Jon cared and he had given such great advice about Jack the last time they talked, so when Jon asked what else was bugging Shawn, he opened up. “My therapist thinks it might be time I talk to Jack about dad. Jack hasn’t told me, but I know he’s been looking for dad. I’m scared he might find him.”

Jon nodded, “I think your therapist is right. Jack needs to know that he shouldn’t find your dad. It’s dangerous and Jack isn’t going to let up until you explain why.”

Shawn sighed. “I know, it’s just, I don’t like to even think about it, how am I going to talk about it?”

Jon looked worried. “If you want, I can be here while you do it. We can do it tonight and I’ll still be around until tomorrow night…”

Shawn looked up at Jon and was thankful that he was still being taken care of. “Yeah, that actually sounds like a good plan. I mean, I’ll talk and everything, but I’d just like you to be in the room, ya know?”

Jon agreed and Shawn called Jack at work to let him know they would talk that night.

***********

Jack arrived home from work at about 7:30 that evening ready to listen to whatever Shawn had to say. He hadn’t told Shawn yet, but he was still looking for their dad. He knew that Shawn had issues with his dad because he was an abusive drunk, but Jack still felt the need to find him. Shawn never really elaborated on the comment Cory made the month before during the confrontation with Shawn. Jack wanted to know everything about Shawn, but he knew he wouldn’t get an answer if he asked, so he kept quiet and waited for Shawn to come to him; the time had finally come.

As soon as he opened the door, he saw Mr. Turner and Shawn sitting on the couch in the living room. He was slightly surprised that Jon was going to be around while they talked, but he didn’t comment.

“Hey Shawn, Mr. Turner, how are things?” Jack said closing the door and taking a seat.

Shawn looked over at his brother, “Good. I just kind of think we need to talk…I… I know you’ve been looking for dad still, and I need you to stop.”

Jack looked slightly confused. “Oh, yeah, I guess I should have told you about that. I just, want to know what he was like ya know? I had my step-dad, but I never really knew what it was like to have a real dad around. I just want to see him.”

Shawn sighed as Jon squeezed his shoulder for support.

“I know that it must have sucked, but really, you’re better off without him. Growing up, he never kept a job for more than a week and was drunk every night. When he wasn’t passed out drunk on the couch, he was… beating me and yelling at my mom. He started when I was about seven years old... It was almost every night really.” Shawn paused and closed his eyes for a moment before looking back over to Jack.

“Sometimes it was because I got in his way or did something wrong, but sometimes I don’t know why he’d do it. One time he broke my arm and cracked my head open. My mom had to take me to the hospital and told them that I was hit by a car while on my bike… Dad didn’t even wait for me to heal before he started hitting me again.  Eventually he didn’t even need to get drunk before a beating. After mom left, it only got worse because he blamed me for her leaving. Then he finally left a couple weeks later to go and find her and thankfully, I haven’t seen him since.”

Jack stared at the floor trying to take all of it in. He never realized how lucky he was that he had gotten out before Chett had the chance to hurt him.

Shawn didn’t want to have to keep going, but he knew Jack needed to know the extent to which his decision to find their father would affect Shawn. “If you want to keep trying to find dad, you have to promise to keep me out of it. Don’t bring him here and don’t ever mention me. I’ll only get worse if I have to deal with him again.”

Jack was slightly confused what Shawn meant by “get worse”.

“Do you mean your depression will get worse?” Jack wasn’t completely clueless; he could see Shawn had some sort of depression.

Shawn nodded and looked to Jon. He didn’t want to have to talk about all the problems that he had gone though. Jon took his cue to take over and looked at Jack as Shawn leaned back into the couch.

“After Chett left, Shawn wasn’t stable. He was cutting himself a lot and eventually Shawn had a suicide attempt several years ago. Since then, he’s struggled with his self-destructive tendencies. When his mother came back and nearly beat him to death, Shawn relapsed with his self-injury and still fights it every day.”

Jack stared at Jon and then looked over to Shawn, he couldn’t imagine how terrible things must have gotten for Shawn to want to kill himself. When Jack didn’t say anything, Jon continued.

“I highly advise that you give up on your search for Chett- not only for Shawn’s sake, but for your own safety as well. Nothing good will come from finding him.”

Jack finally began to understand his brother a lot better. He understood now why Shawn had taken so quickly to drinking, he understood why Shawn was usually so withdrawn and never talked about his father, and he understood why Jon had stayed for their talk. Jon was the father that Shawn needed and deserved.

“I’m sorry Shawn,” Jack said after a moment. “I… didn’t realize. I’m going to stop looking for dad. I’m just glad that I have a brother now and I’ll focus on getting to know you.”

Shawn nodded “Thanks. Sorry it took so long to talk to you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I get it now.” Jack said as he stood up from his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to go think about things for a bit.”

Jon looked at Shawn and hugged him. Shawn looked drained and seemed to be caught up in his own head again. He had suspected this might happen.

“Shawn? How about we go out and get some dinner or something?”

Shawn did feel slightly hungry and agreed to go get food. Jon was going to spend the rest of the night making sure Shawn was okay.

************

The next evening, Jon had to leave. He had spent the day visiting old friends and catching up with Feeny, getting months’ worth of advice that he couldn’t get back in California. When it came time to leave, he hugged Shawn tightly and had an idea.

“Shawn?” Jon asked, waiting for a response. When Shawn looked up, Jon continued. “Years ago, I promised you a ticket to California. How about you come out and visit over spring break?”

Shawn smiled and laughed more than he had in months. He loved that Jon would remember a promise he made to a stupid, suicidal runaway almost 5 years ago.

“That would be awesome Jon. Thanks for remembering.”


	15. Chapter 15

Spring Break finally came and while Shawn was excited for the trip, he still had some reservations about going. He was all set to go and was waiting for Cory to pick him up. He was slightly nervous about going but he wasn’t sure why. When Cory arrived at the apartment and Shawn got in the car, Cory knew something was off. He instantly wished that he had let his dad take Shawn to the station instead. He looked at Shawn and flashbacked to the last time he went to the bus station. He saw Shawn covered in blood and dying. Cory quickly shook his head and tried to get back to reality.

“Ready to go Shawn?”

Shawn nodded and looked at the window. He couldn’t figure out why he was nervous. He wanted to talk to Cory about it, but wasn’t sure what he would even say. How was he supposed to talk about it when he didn’t understand it? Cory started driving and knew they both needed to talk. Something was amiss and Cory knew why he was on edge, but he wasn’t sure about Shawn.

“Shawn? I… Is something bothering you about leaving?”

“I think so,” Shawn said hesitantly. “I don’t really know why, but I’m nervous about going to California. It’s almost like I have a history there even though I’ve never been. It feels like… I’m running away again, even though there’s actually someone waiting for me this time.”

Cory listened quietly and didn’t quite understand. He’d never tried to run away before, so he didn’t really know what it felt like.

He continued, “I guess I’ve just always had these expectations that when I go to California, I would be better.”

Shawn started running his hand over his scars again and Cory took notice.

“I know you’re going to be fine Shawn. It’s just a place and this time, you are better. You’re not completely fixed, but considering you’re not running away anymore, means that you aren’t the same kid you were back then…” Cory just kept thinking about how much he didn’t want to enter the bus station again.

They pulled into the bus station and Cory parked the car. He decided he wasn’t going to just drop Shawn off. He was going to wait with Shawn and make sure he got on the bus. Shawn grabbed his bag and as they walked into the station, he could tell Cory was uneasy about something.

Cory paused before opening the door to the station. “You don’t need to use the bathroom here do you?”

Shawn hadn’t really thought about that. He kind of did. He obviously remembered he almost died here, but he was too distracted to think about how difficult it would be for Cory too.

“Oh… uh, no Cor. I’m sorry about that. You don’t have to come in…”

“No, that’s no it, I’ll be okay. I just keep remembering what you were like…”

“Right, well, I’m fine now. I just need to get on the bus and everything will be alright.” Shawn opened the door and the boys walked in.

They found the terminal that Shawn’s bus was at. They had about 20 minutes to wait until Shawn could get on the bus. They didn’t speak much as they sat and waited. Cory looked around at the employees and was glad that no one recognized either of them. He figured the employees that were there years ago probably didn’t even work here anymore.

Finally Shawn’s bus was boarding and the boys stood up.

Shawn picked up his bag. “Well, I’ll see you in a week and a half buddy.”

“Shawn, wait.” Cory hugged Shawn tightly and waited for Shawn to hug back. “I’m glad you didn’t die here.”

Shawn hugged Cory as if trying to say a thousand words, “Me too Cor.”

***************

Shawn arrived in California a day and a half later and Jon was waiting for him as he got off the bus. They spent the next week doing some typical tourist things and also just catching up. Shawn had been doing well in the months since he last saw Turner. He and Jack were getting to know each other better and Shawn had made real progress with his therapist. Shawn hadn’t cut at all. Sure, he still wanted to sometimes, but he always found something to do instead. He and Angela were having a happy and healthy relationship which Shawn was so thankful for but also slightly terrified that he would screw it up at any moment.

Around the third night in California, Turner sat down with Shawn and decided to tell him some changes that were going to be happening.

“Shawn, I have some good news… Remember Melanie Clifton?”

“Yeah, rich girl you used to date. What about her?”

Jon wasn’t sure how Shawn would react, but he was excited to share the news with him anyway. “I’ve been dating her again since I moved out here. I’m thinking of asking her to marry me.”

“That’s great Jon! I’m really happy for you!” Shawn said with a smile.

“I’m glad you approve cause if she says yes, I want you to be in the wedding next year.”

“Of course I will Jon! I know she’s going to say yes. I just hope that someday I’ll be able to keep a relationship like that.” Shawn really was happy that Jon was going to start a new part of his life. He thought about Angela and how she’s the only girl he’s ever been close to. But even so, he hasn’t been able to share everything with her.

Turner could tell Shawn was thinking about something else, “Shawn, what are you thinking about?”

“It’s just… I think I might love Angela but I just keep thinking I’m going to screw it up someday and she’ll leave me.”

“Shawn, if things are meant to work out with Angela, you’ll make it work. She’s a nice girl and she’s not going to leave you just because you’ve had a messed up past. No one really ever knows what they’re doing in a relationship. You just have to be open with her and work at it.”

Shawn nodded. He really missed having Jon around all the time. Jon always knew how to talk to Shawn about things. He didn’t want to bring down the mood, so he switched back to talking about Jon’s relationship. “Alright, so how are you going to propose?”

They spent the night talking about Jon’s plan.

************

Spring break ended, and Shawn was back in school. Jon called a couple of weeks after spring break and told Shawn that Melanie had said yes. They would be getting married in September. Shawn was really happy for Jon, but he also felt a sense of loss as he finally knew that Jon would be building a real family and having his own kids. He knew he’d always have Jon’s help whenever he asked, but he also knew that he wasn’t a kid anymore either. He was 18 now and he was going to graduate from high school and move on with his own life. The more he thought about it, the more he still felt like a kid. He wouldn’t have a place in Jon’s life anymore and that scared him. Shawn didn’t like that life was changing again. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his life and it didn’t help that Cory kept pressuring him about going to college. But graduation was soon, and Shawn had to figure his life out quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending is coming. Only 2 more chapters left. They're done, but I just need to revise them.


	16. Chapter 16

It was April when Shawn relapsed.

Jack had just gotten back from work and was watching TV with Shawn and Eric when there was a knock at the door. No one was expecting a visitor. Jack opened the door and froze.

“Shawn…I need you to go to your room, lock the door and call Mr. Matthews.” Jack said as he stared at Chett Hunter.

Shawn was confused, but the tone of Jack’s voice made Shawn realize that something bad was happening. He just got to the stairs when he heard his father’s voice say hello to Jack. With his mind now racing, he stopped walking and instead ran into his room. He locked the door and leaned against it, focusing on his breathing. After a minute he picked up the phone and called the Matthews.

Alan answered the phone, “Alan Matth-”

“My dad is back,” Shawn said, cutting him off.  He started speaking rapidly. “He’s in the living room with Jack right now he just showed up at the door and I don’t know what’s going on but-”

“Shawn!” Alan needed Shawn to calm down. “Alright, just stay away from him. I am on my way right now. Just calm down and don’t do anything stupid. You know what, call Jon and talk to him until I show up.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that,” Shawn managed to mumble before hanging up.

He wanted to cut so badly for the first time in months. He was breaking apart his shaving razor when the phone rang. He stared at it and then answered.

“Hello?”

“Shawn? It’s Jon, Alan told me your dad is back. What’s going on?”

Shawn’s mind eased slightly. Somehow Alan knew that Shawn would be too distracted to call Turner himself. “I don’t know. I was just sitting with Jack and Eric…and my dad…he showed up at the door. Jack is with him now… I… Why is he back?”

Jon knew he had to keep Shawn calm. He couldn’t let Shawn have a full blown panic attack. He worked on distracting Shawn as best he could.

In the living room, Jack was nervous. He no longer wanted to meet his father. He had no idea why Chett was there and he didn’t really feel comfortable or safe having him in the apartment. He was thankful that Eric was still there. “Hi….dad…” He said, still not letting Chett get past the door. “Um, now isn’t really a good time.”

Chett smiled but it seemed creepy to Jack. “Ah boy, nonsense. I just came here to see my boys. But you know, I don’t really want to see Alan Matthews all that much. So how about you just get Shawn to come out here and I’ll catch up with my boys.”

Jack didn’t know what to do. “Shawn’s kind of busy, homework and such. It’s nice to see you again, but I really don’t think that you should be here right now.”

Chett didn’t have the energy to fight with Jack. He had just had a heart attack a week before and was told to take it easy. He drove 10 hours to get to Philly to see Shawn again. He had arrived yesterday and found Shawn. He didn’t approach his son at the time because he knew that the boy was protected now. Chett had found Virna a couple months ago. She refused to get back together with him though and mentioned what she had done to Shawn. She hated Chett, Shawn, and herself. But she did tell Chett that after she was there, everyone around Shawn was going to be on high alert.

Chett was surprised when he discovered Shawn was now living with Jack. It really made things easier for Chett though. The whole reason he was there was because he knew he was going to die soon and he just wanted to see his sons one last time. He was going to see Shawn and then go find Jack, but now they were in the same place.

“You know son, I don’t really have a lot of time left, and I just wanted to make things right with my boys.”

Unbeknownst to Jack and Eric, Shawn had come out of his room. “What do you mean you don’t have a lot of time left?” Shawn asked.

Shawn was standing by the kitchen counter and staring at his father in the doorway.

“Shawnie my boy. You sure have grown haven’t you?” Chett’s booming voice dominated the apartment.

“What are you doing here dad, you need to leave.” Shawn slightly regretted leaving his room, but he didn’t want to hide and leave Jack and Eric alone with their dad. Shawn was the only one who really knew what his dad was capable of.

Chett took a step forward, forcing Jack to move. Shawn saw his father move and instinctively took a step back. His skin was crawling and he hoped Alan would show up soon. Eric moved to stand next to Shawn.

As he entered the apartment, Chett could see his son begin to panic. “I think I’m dying boys and I just wanted to come and give you back the trailer. I’ve gotta leave this stuff to someone,” he chuckled.

“Great, I’m glad to hear it. Now please go die somewhere else.” Shawn really didn’t care if his father was dying he just wanted him out of his living room. He didn’t want anything his father could possibly have in his possession.

“Chett, I think the boy has asked you to leave.” Alan Matthews entered the apartment and stepped towards Chett. “I believe we already talked about you never seeing your son again.”

“You know what Alan,” Chett said turning to face Alan. “He’s my son and it’s my dying wish to see my sons again. So I think you should go back to your family and leave me here with mine.”

“Shawn is my family-” Alan cut himself off as he saw Chett was struggling to stand on his own two feet. He turned to Jack, “Call an ambulance. Your dad’s having a heart attack.”

In all the chaos, no one seemed to notice that Shawn went back to his room. As soon as Chett collapsed, Jack called 911 and Alan started telling Eric what they needed to do to help Chett before the ambulance arrived.

Shawn went to his room and quietly closed the door. He was in a haze and seemed to be moving on autopilot. He sat on his bed and took off his shirt, revealing a t-shirt underneath. He took the razor he had broken apart earlier and began to carve into his arm. He didn’t know how long he was sitting there or how many cuts he was making. He was suddenly aware that he was being shaken and someone was yelling around him.

The ambulance had arrived and as they were putting Chett on a stretcher when Eric noticed Shawn wasn’t around anymore. He walked over to Shawn’s room and opened the door without knocking. As soon as he saw Shawn he ran over to the bed and took the razor out of Shawn’s hand. He couldn’t understand what was going on; Shawn didn’t seem to know what he was doing. He was just staring at his arm, watching blood flow down his arm and onto the sheets of his bed. Shawn didn’t even seem to register that Eric had entered the room and taken away the razor. Eric yelled for his dad and grabbed Shawn’s shoulders and shook him until Shawn looked up at Eric.

“Shawn! What are you doing?!” Eric obviously knew about Shawn’s problems before, but walking in on it was a completely different story and Eric wasn’t ready to read it.

When Shawn didn’t answer Eric just hugged him, not caring that Shawn’s blood was getting on his shirt. Shawn still hadn’t seemed to snap out of whatever world he was in and Eric had no idea what to do. Luckily, Alan quickly entered the room after hearing the yelling.

“Dear God, Shawn!” Alan went over to Shawn and Eric released Shawn from his hug. Alan took Shawn’s arm and looked at the damage. Shawn was catatonic and his arm was covered in blood. He didn’t think the cuts were very deep, but there were a lot of them. Alan grabbed the nearest shirt in the room and wrapped it around Shawn’s arm. He got Shawn to stand up and with Eric’s help, the two led Shawn out of his room.

“What happened?” Jack asked as he saw the three men enter the living room.

“Shawn’s completely out of it. I can’t tell how bad his cuts are, get him into my car.” Alan told Jack as they walked Shawn out of the apartment.

Jack locked the apartment door behind them and wanted to pass out. He was so emotionally drained, and he knew the night wasn’t over yet. He sat with Shawn in the back seat and kept pressure on Shawn’s arm as Alan drove all of them to the hospital.

Once they arrived at the hospital, everyone split up. Alan went with Shawn as the ER doctors took a look at his arm, Jack went to go see the nurses about their father, and Eric went to go make phone calls.

Eric called the house hoping to talk to his mom and not Cory; he didn’t want to have to be the one to tell Cory what was happening. When his mom answered, Eric was relieved. He told his mom the situation and she nearly dropped the phone. She had gotten home only 10 minutes before and was wondering where Alan had went. She hung up with Eric and went to get Cory.

Eric then called Jon. He didn’t know that Shawn had talked to Turner earlier, but he knew that Jon needed to know what was happening.

“Shawn?” Jon had been waiting by the phone. Shawn had hung up with Jon earlier promising to call when things were over.

“No, Jon, it’s Eric Matthews.”

Jon knew this could only be bad news. “Is Shawn alright?”

“We don’t know yet. I found him… cutting himself in his room. His dad had a heart attack in our apartment and we don’t know how either of them are doing.”

Jon was frustrated. He wanted to be there for Shawn, but there was no way he could get there. He really hated having moved away Shawn, but he was doing so well and everything was finally going well for the kid. He told Eric to call as soon as anything happens. He knew it would be a long night.

Jack was stuck doing paperwork. He had no idea how to answer any of the questions on the forms. He just saw his father for the first time since he was about 3. How was he supposed to know any medical history or insurance information? He highly doubted that Chett had insurance though. He filled out what he could and then tried to find out how his dad was doing. Apparently he needed bypass surgery and was going to be moved soon. Jack sighed and went to go find out about Shawn.

Shawn was sitting in an ER room just staring at the door. He knew he was in the hospital but he didn’t realize how he got there. He just remembers blurs of faces and feeling people touching his back or putting weight on his arm.

Alan watched as the nurse cleaned up Shawn’s arm and tried to get through the bleeding to see how bad the cuts were. Luckily, only one of them needed stitches and none of them had hit any major veins. There were 14 cuts in total and Shawn didn’t seem to recognize that anything was happening around him. He talked to the doctor as if Shawn wasn’t in the room, because it seemed he really wasn’t anyway.

“Mr. Matthews, Shawn may benefit from staying here in our psychiatric ward. I see he has a history of self-harm and suicidal tendencies,” the ER doctor suggested as she stitched up the deeper cut.

“Honestly, I don’t know about that yet. His father was just admitted here for having a heart attack. I think this might just be Shawn’s reaction to all of this... I don’t want to commit him until we figure out what’s happening. He was progressing so well before this…” Alan looked at Shawn and saw the young man he had become. He didn’t look like the broken shell of a kid that Alan remembers seeing last time they were in the hospital. He was really proud of Shawn for doing so well lately.

Alan suddenly felt a wave of anger fill him up and he wanted to go kill Chett himself. He hated Chett for coming back here and messing up Shawn’s life again. Alan wasn’t one to wish bad things for people, but he honestly thought that the best thing Chett could do for his son, would be to die in the hospital today. He tried to get his mind away from that kind of thinking. He really hoped Amy would show up soon. He needed her support.

Amy, Cory, Topanga, Angela, and Mr. Feeny finally arrived in the hospital waiting room and found Jack and Eric sitting anxiously. Cory was furious and restless. Topanga held his hand and tried to keep him calm. Cory hated that Chett had come back. _He has no right to come here and hurt Shawn again,_ he thought. Cory was also unsure about how Shawn was doing. He hated not knowing how badly Shawn was hurt. He knew he was well enough to get to the hospital and Eric said that their dad didn’t think the cuts were too deep, but Cory just kept seeing Shawn covered in blood again. He’d never been able to get that image out of his memory. He saw a therapist a couple times years ago right after Shawn’s attempt, and it helped Cory a little bit, but the memory would always be there and whenever Shawn was hurting, the image came back fresh.

Fortunately, no one had to wait too long. Shawn and Alan walked into the waiting room 5 minutes later and Shawn sat down next to Cory without saying a word. He just closed his eyes and put his head on Cory’s shoulder.

No one said anything to Shawn but instead turned to Alan for an explanation.  

“He’s got 14 cuts. Only one of them needed stitches. He’s going to be okay, he hasn’t spoken since before we left the apartment. He still doesn’t seem to be entirely… with us.” Alan informed everyone and he took a seat next to his wife.

Half an hour of silence later, the doctor came out to the waiting room. Shawn sat up but still said nothing.

“I’m sorry, but we lost him.”

Shawn didn’t know how to feel. He was suddenly filled with thousands of emotions and didn’t know if he wanted to scream, cry, or laugh. Everyone stared at him as he started laughing. No one knew what to do. Angela took his hand and squeezed gently. 

“Shawn? Are you alright?” She asked while looking to the others for help.

When Shawn got up and walked out of the hospital, Cory ran after him. “Shawn! Please talk to me!”

He was out of his trance and knowing his dad was harmless now made Shawn happy and angry and sad and completely conflicted.

Shawn stopped and turned back to face Cory. “I’m fine Cor. Don’t you see, this is great!” Shawn almost seemed manic, “My dad can never hurt me again. I don’t have to worry if he’s someday going to show up and kill me like he always tried to. I’m safe from him now and I’m fine… really.”

Cory thought Shawn was almost trying to convince himself. “Then just come back with us. Let everyone else know you’re fine, because they’re freaked out.”

Shawn nodded but didn’t move. Cory stepped closer to Shawn and hugged him. Shawn didn’t hug back, instead he started talking.

“I…am happy. But…I’m also angry and depressed and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Cory stopped hugging him and grabbed his shoulders, getting Shawn’s eye contact. “Shawn, you can feel however you want. But you’re right; he can’t screw up your life anymore. You’re free from him, and you need to focus on getting better… Just let us help you. All those people inside are here because of you. None of us would have shown up for your dad. We’re here because you’re hurting.”

“Thanks” Shawn muttered. He didn’t really want to talk; he just needed to sort himself out.

************

There was no funeral for Chett Hunter. No one who knew he was dead actually wanted to honor him with a funeral. So they left it to the state to place him in a grave and a week later, they were notified of where Chett was buried.

Cory, Jack, Shawn, and Eric were hanging out in the apartment when Jack got the phone call.

“Shawn… That was the county. They say dad’s buried in St. Mark’s cemetery… I think I want to go…you wanna come?” Jack just wanted to say his final goodbye, he had been thinking a lot about his last interactions with his dad, and he had some things he needed to get off his chest.

Shawn didn’t look up from the TV. “Nah, have fun though.”

Cory looked at Shawn. He hadn’t spoken about his dad since the scene at the hospital and Cory didn’t know if Shawn was really okay. “Shawn, I kinda think you should go. It might help.”

Shawn shrugged. He didn’t really have an interest in going. He didn’t see what difference it would make. But he also didn’t want to argue. He wanted everyone to think that he was okay.

“I guess I’ll go. But I might just wait in the car.” Shawn admitted as he got off the couch.

Cory took that as a good sign and they all left.

They pulled into the cemetery and Jack got out of the car. He walked over to the gravesite and sighed. He had never expected his life would have gotten so messy.

Jack stood next to the grave and quietly confessed to his dead father, “I always thought I wanted to know you while I was growing up... Every time my step-dad pissed me off, I thought _Man, my real dad wouldn’t be this mean._ But I was better off and you never deserved Shawn. I’ve gotten to know him, and despite all the ways you made his life miserable, he’s still going to come out on top. You really did your best to fuck him up and he’s still fighting. So thanks for never being there for me. I really am grateful.”

He looked up as he noticed Shawn was walking towards him. He patted Shawn on the back as he walked towards the car, giving his brother some time alone.

Shawn reached his dad’s grave and didn’t really know why he came. He sat down and stared at the name on the headstone. He realized he had so much to say now. Suddenly he found himself talking.

“How come I wasn’t ever good enough for you?” He started calmly. “What did I ever do so wrong that I deserved for you to hate me _so_ much? And why did you even come back? Was it because I was doing so well? You can’t just… come back and die. This isn’t what fathers do!”

Shawn was growing angry and could feel his blood rushing in his veins, but this time, he didn’t feel like he wanted it out of his body.

“I’m glad you’re dead ya know. You’ve fucked up my life enough and now I can finally be done with you.”

He sat there in silence for a moment before he started laughing. “You know, I never thought I’d actually outlive you… Some nights when you would hurt me so badly, I really did think _maybe this is the night he kills me._ I didn’t know if I’d actually wake up after you’d beat me unconscious. So I find it funny that I’m the one sitting at your grave instead. Now you can’t hurt me when I tell you I don’t love you.”

Shawn stood up, preparing to leave. He was about to turn around and walk back when he looked at the dirt one more time and started crying. “I tried though. I think I stopped loving you when I was 10… You’d been beating me for years…but I still wanted to make you happy. I wanted you to be like Cory’s dad. I thought if I were a better kid, you would eventually love me. But after 3 years of beatings, I knew there wasn’t anything I could do. I didn’t even care anymore about trying to do things that might suddenly make you realize you loved your son…Why couldn’t you have just been a normal father? Why couldn’t you just love me?”

He didn’t move; he just let the tears fall down his cheeks. He felt a hand on his shoulder and was pulled into a hug as soon as he turned around. Cory was glad that Shawn had finally said his peace.


	17. Chapter 17

Shawn made it through the rest of school easily. Angela was patient and supportive and Shawn even opened up to her a bit more about his past. He didn’t go into detail about the nightmare that used to be his everyday life, but he did talk more about the facts that his parents used to beat him. He even told her that he had tried to kill himself years before. She knew about the self-harm. The scars were always there and she had even helped distract Shawn on a couple occasions when he confided in her that he wanted to cut. She saw the long vertical cut before, but never asked. He finally told her the story because he felt she deserved to know how bad it used to be.

*******

Graduation was a week away now and everyone was excited but nervous. Shawn didn’t want to think about it. Feeny had given them a last, optional assignment, to write about their feelings over their final week. Shawn kept saying he wasn’t going to do it, but when he pulled out his journal, he found himself writing about everything.

_I never thought I would make it to graduation. A lot of nights, I never even thought I’d make it to the next morning. Ever since I was a kid, I never wanted to go to school, but during this last week, I keep finding myself reluctant to leave at the end of the day. I just like to sit in the halls and think about how much John Addams has become my home. When I didn’t have anywhere to live, the one constant in my life was that at the start of the week, I’d be right back in school. I keep thinking about Mr. Feeny and Mr. Turner and the Matthews and how they never gave up on me even though they had every right to get sick of me. When I would have rather died than face the reality I was living in, they were there to make sure I didn’t face it alone. I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for all of them. I owe them so much and can never repay them all. They worked harder than I did to make sure I succeeded. I just keep thinking about how many times I screwed up while I’ve been in high school. I could have done so much better. I let myself give up because that’s all I thought I was good for. I’m sorry for not forcing myself to be the person they all knew I could have been. That’s all I’ve been feeling these past couple days, I could have done better. But now I feel like I’m prepared to leave my past behind me. I’ve become a vastly different person since I started high school and my life has changed in ways I never thought it possibly could. I know I could have done better, but now I will do better. I have a whole life ahead of me that I am finally looking forward to living it._

Shawn eventually turned his thoughts into a proper paper that he could turn in and ended up reading it at graduation because Topanga said his paper was better than any speech she could have given. He highly doubted it, but he did feel like he needed to say something to everyone. He had given up on himself so many times but no one ever let him stay down and that was something he was so grateful for. Everyone that he thought should have left him years ago was still around to support him. Cory and Topanga were going to get married, Angela was still loving him, the Matthews were still his family, Feeny was still the greatest teacher he’d ever had, and Jon showed up for graduation as promised and brought Melanie with him.

As Shawn stood with his family and friends after graduation, he finally saw his life was worth living and he was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. So this is the ending. I hope you all liked it and thanks for sticking with it. This is legit my first fic and I loved writing it. Hopefully I will write some more, but I just don't know what to go to next.   
> If you feel so inclined, let me know what you think.


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